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THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  NEW  TESTA- 
MENT CANON  IN  THE  SYRIAN 
CHURCH 


BY 


JULIUS  A.  BEWER 


SUBMITTED    IN    PARTIAL    FULFILMENT    OF    THE    REQUIREMENTS    FOR 

THE    DEGREE    OF    DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

IN   THE 

FACULTY    OF    PHILOSOPHY,   COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 


CHICAGO 

tTbe  TUniverditi?  of  Cbtcago  pxcM 

1 900 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  NEW  TESTA- 
MENT CANON  IN  THE  SYRIAN 
CHURCH 


BY 

JULIUS  A.  BEWER 


SUBMITTED    IN    PARTIAL    FULFILMENT    OF    THE    REQUIREMENTS    FOR 

THE    DEGREE    OF    DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

IN   THE 

FACULTY    OF    PHILOSOPHY,    COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 


CHICAGO 

Sbe  'tSXnivetBit^  ot  Gblcago  pcees 

1 900 


C^A, 


D'^ 


Aa 


PREFACE. 

The  study  of  the  relation  of  the  various  documents  which  form  the 
material  of  the  dissertation  has  something  fascinating,  when  the 
religious  impulses  are  seen  at  work.  The  Syrians  were  no  great 
literary  people,  but  they  were  aglow  for  Christ.  The  throbbing  of 
their  passionate  love  for  the  Savior,  which  distinguishes  them  later  on, 
may  be  felt  here  already  in  the  various  attempts  which  they  made  to 
translate  his  gospel  into  their  own  language.  This  recompenses  us  in  a 
certain  sense  for  the  scanty  information  which  we  have  of  the  beginning 
of  Christianity  in  Syria.  Three  translations  of  the  gospels,  made  at 
pretty  nearly  the  same  time,  evidence  the  strength  of  the  Christian 
life  at  the  very  beginning.  It  is  important  that  this  religious  element 
be  not  overlooked. 

I  count  myself  happy  that  my  teacher.  Professor  Gottheil,  has 
allowed  me  to  take  this  subject  for  my  dissertation,  and  that  he  has 
always  directed  my  attention  to  matters  of  special  interest  for  a  theo- 
logical student.  It  is  due  to  this  that  I  could  combine  my  theological 
with  my  oriental  studies.  I  want  to  thank  him  most  heartily  for  his 
teaching  and  the  kind  interest  he  has  always  taken  in  my  work. 

I  am  impelled  also  to  thank  my  teacher,  Professor  McGiffert.  To 
him  I  owe  my  training  in  historical  criticism  ;  he  suggested  the  theme 
to  me,  and  in  his  seminar  the  thesis  was  first  read.  His  kind  interest 
has  never  been  wanting. 

This  dissertation  was  finished  in  the  spring  of  last  year;  therefore 
the  newer  publications  could  not  be  consulted.  They  would,  however, 
have  modified  none  of  the  results. 

JULIUS  A.  BEWER. 
Basle,  Switzerland, 
January,  1 900. 


207773 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON   IN 
THE  SYRIAN  CHURCH. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

Since  the  publication  of  Theodor  Zahn's  monumental  work,  Die 
Geschichte  des  neutestamentlichen  Kanons,  a  flood  of  light  has  been 
thrown  on  the  history  of  the  New  Testament  canon  in  the  Syrian 
church  by  the  discovery  of  the  Codex  Syrus  Sinaiticus,  which  modifies 
the  course  of  the  history  a  good  deal.  But  though  this  famous  codex 
has  been  carefully  studied  and  compared  with  the  other  documents, 
though  its  place  in  the  genealogy  of  the  text  has  been  the  subject  of 
controversy,  nobody  has  as  yet  undertaken  a  reconstruction  of  the 
history  of  the  New  Testament  canon  in  the  Syrian  church.  It  is  this 
that  I  should  like  to  attempt  in  this  study.  But  before  we  can  recon- 
struct the  history,  many  points  have  to  be  considered,  for  there  is  lack 
of  unanimity  among  scholars  in  regard  to  almost  all  the  questions  at 
issue. 

Right  at  the  outset  it  is  best  to  define  clearly  what  belongs  to  the 
subject  and  what  not.  I  give,  therefore,  here  a  statement  of  the  ques- 
tions which  will  be  treated.  The  cardinal  point  is :  only  thai  which 
bears  directly  on  the  history  of  the  canon  will  be  considered.  Everything 
else,  however  valuable  in  itself,  will  be  omitted.  Thus  it  is  not  neces- 
sary for  our  purpose,  e.  g.,  to  compare  the  Syrus  Sinaiticus,  the  Cureto- 
nianus,  and  Peshitta  with  the  Palestinian  Syriac,  nor  to  compare  the 
later  revision,  the  Philoxenian  and  the  Heraclian,  with  the  Peshitta. 
The  history  of  the  text  as  such  is  different  from  the  history  of  the 
canon.     The  problems  to  be  considered  are : 

i.    As  regards  the  gospels  : 

1.  What  is  the  relation  of  Syrus  Sinaiticus  (=  Ss)  to  Syrus  Curetonianus 
(=Sc)? 

2.  What  is  the  relation  of  Ss  and  Sc  to  the  Peshitta  {—  P)  ? 

3.  What  is  the  relation  of  Ss,  Sc,  and  P  to  the  Greek  ? 

4.  What  is  the  relation  of  Ss,  Sc,  and  P  to  Tatian's  Diatessaron  {—  T)  ? 

5.  Which  gospel  did  Aphraates  (=  A)  use,  the  gospel  harmony  or  the 
separate  gospels,  or  both  ? 

6.  Which  did  Ephraim  (=  E)  use  ? 

T 


2  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

ii.    As  regards  the  Acts  and  epistles  : 

1.  What  does  the  Doctrina  Addai  say  about  them  ? 

2.  Does  Aphraates  use  all  of  them  ? 

3.  Are  all  the  epistles  in  the  Peshitta  ? 

4.  What  is  the  relation  of  the  text  of  the  epistles  in  Aphraates  to  that  of 
P? 

5.  What  that  of  Ephraim  ? 

6.  Does  Ephraim  use  all  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  ? 

iii.     As  regards  canonicity  : 

1.  What  light  does  the  Doctrina  Addai  shed  on  this  question  ? 

2.  Did  Aphraates  have  a  canon  ? 

3.  If  so,  on  what  principle  was  it  based  ? 

When  these  questions  are  answered,  we  are  ready  to  attempt  the 
reconstruction  of  the  entire  history. 

The  sources  are  not  many.  The  lack  of  historical  references  makes 
the  history  all  the  more  complicated.  The  sources  are:  (i)  the 
Codex  Syrus  Sinaiticus  (=Ss);'  (2)  the  Codex  Syrus  Curetonianus 
(=Sc);'  (3)  the  Peshitta  (=P);'  (4)  the  Diatessaron  of  Tatian 
(=T);'  (5)  the  homilies  of  Aphraates  (=A);3  (6)  the  works  of 
Ephraim  (=E);2  (7)  references  to  Tatian  and  the  Diatessaron  in  the 
church  fathers; 4    (8)  the  Doctrina  Addai. ^ 

'  Cf.  E.  Nestle,  "  Die  syrischen  Bibeliibersetzungen,"  in  Real-Encyclopddie  fiir 
protestanthche  Theologie  tind  Kirche  (=  RE),  3.  Aufl.,  Vol.  Ill,  1897. 

•  Cf.  A.  ClASCA,  Tatiani  Evangeliorum  harmoniae  arabice  ....  edidit,  Roma, 
1888. — G.  MOESINGER,  Evangelii  concordantis  expositio  facta  a  sancto  Ephraemo, 
Venezia,  1896. — Theo.  Zahn,  Forschungen  zur  Geschichte  des  neutestamentlichen 
Kanons  tind  der  altkirchlichen  Literahir.  I.  Theil:  Tatian'' s  Diatessaron,  Erlangen, 
1881  —  a  famous  reconstruction  of  the  lost  gospel  harmony.  See  also  Zahn's  article, 
"  Zur  Geschichte  von  Tatian's  Diatessaron  im  Abendland,"  Neue  kirchl.  Zeitschr., 
1894,  No.  2. — J.  Hamlyn  Hill,  The  Earliest  Life  of  Christ  ever  Compiled  from  the 
Four  Gospels,  being  the  Diatessaron  of  Tatian,  Edinburgh,  1894. —  J.  Rendel  Harris, 
7 he  Diatessaron  of  Tatian.  A  Preliminary  Study,  London,  1890,  and  "The 
Diatessaron,"  Contempo7-ary  Review,  August,  1895,  in  answer  to  R.  W.  Cassels,  "  The 
Diatessaron  of  Tatian,"  A^ineteenth  Century,  Apn\,  1895. —  S.  Hemphill,  The  Dia- 
tessaron of  Tatian,  London  and  Dublin,  1888. — Also  the  articles  of  J.  M.  Fuller  in 
the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography  and  of  Adolf  Harnack  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannic  a. 

3  Cf.  NESTLE  in  RE,  s.  v. 

■»  See  J.  Rendel  Harris  and  Hill  as  quoted  in  footnote  2. 

sSee  Cureton,  Ancient  Syriac  Documents,  1864. —  Geo.  Phillips  in  his 
standard  edition,  1876. —  LiPSlus,  "Zur  edessenischen  Abgar-Sage,"  Jahrb.f  protest. 
Theologie,  1 880,  pp.  187  f.,  and  on  "Thaddseus,"  in  the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biog- 
raphy. 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGA  TIONS  3 

PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGATIONS. 
1.     THE    GOSPELS. 

As  we  should  expect  in  any  newly  founded  Christian  church,  the 
gospels  were  the  first  to  be  translated  into  Syriac.  Having  heard  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  the  sermons  preached  by  the  missionaries,  the  Syrian 
Christians  had  surrendered  themselves  to  him.  An  ardent  longing  to 
learn  more  of  him  than  the  sermons  of  these  evangelists  could  give 
them  must  soon  have  taken  hold  of  them.  A  translation  of  his  works 
and  words,  as  they  had  already  been  written  down,  must  soon  have 
been  made.  Whether  Tatian  was  one  of  the  early  missionaries,  or 
even  the  founder  of  Christianity,  in  Syria,  we  do  not  know.  It  is 
extremely  doubtful.  If  he  had  been,  it  would  be  very  strange  that  not 
even  the  slightest  tradition  concerning  it  has  come  down  to  us.  We 
know  that  he  has  combined  and  interwoven  the  gospels  in  Syriac  in 
his  Diatessaron  ;  we  know  that  this  gospel  harmony  was  widely  used  in 
Syria ;  but  we  do  not  know  that  he  was  the  first  to  give  the  Syrians 
Christianity  and  the  translation  of  the  Christian  documents.  Granted 
that  a  translation  of  the  gospels  was  made  early  after  the  establishment 
of  Christianity,  we  are  at  once  confronted  by  the  question  :  Which  was 
the  earlier  work,  the  translation  of  the  four  separate  gospels  or  the 
Diatessaron  ?  We  have,  namely,  on  the  one  hand,  a  gospel  harmony, 
and,  on  the  other,  the  four  gospels  given  us  in  the  Syrus  Sinaiticus, 
Curetonianus,  and  the  Peshitta.  That  the  contrast  between  the  two 
was  felt  in  Syria  is  seen  from  the  title  of  the  separate  gospels,  .a-kiik^o] 
)  >.•,■  =1  v^ ,  /.  e.,  "the  gospel  of  the  separated."  But  this  title  cannot  be 
used  as  an  argument  for  the  later  origin  of  Ss  and  Sc  than  T,  because 
we  do  not  know  whether  the  original  translator  has  used  it,  or  whether 
it  was  not  added  by  the  later  scribe  who  wrote  when  the  distinction 
between  the  separate  gospels  and  the  Diatessaron  was  marked,  viz.,  in 
the  fourth  century.  There  is  no  external  evidence  which  can  be 
brought  to  bear  on  this  question  of  priority.  It  is  true,  we  know  from 
the  Doctrina  Addai,  Aphraates,  and  Ephraim  that  the  Diatessaron  was 
widely  used,  but  that  does  not  mean  that  it  was  on  that  account  the 
earliest  text.  The  decision  rests  then,  unfortunately  enough,  exclusively 
on  internal  evidence.  We  must  examine  the  texts  themselves,  and 
there  it  is  necessary  to  see  the  relation  (i)  of  Ss  to  Sc,  (2)  of  Ss  and 
Sc  to  P,  (3)  of  all  three  to  the  Greek,  and  (4)  to  T. 

/.    The  Relation  of  Ss  to  Sc. 
The  order  of  the  gospels  is  different  in  the  two  codices.     Ss  has  the 
order  (=P):   Matt.,   Mark,   Luke,  John;  Sc  has:   Matt.,  Mark,  John, 


4  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

Luke.  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  Sc's  order  seems  to  be  older  than 
that  of  Ss.  The  order  varied  in  the  Syrian  church  at  first,  which  is  seen 
also  from  D  (Codex  Bezge),  which  is  so  closely  related  to  the  Syriac  New 
Testament.  D  has  :  Matt.,  John,  Luke,  Mark.*  The  Old  Syriac  may, 
therefore,  have  had  the  order  of  Sc.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  order  has 
very  little  voice  in  the  decision.  It  will  be  seen  in  the  course  of  this 
investigation  that  Ss  has  a  different  Greek  original  from  Sc.  It  is 
unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  translators  changed  the  order  of  the 
gospels.  They  translated  in  the  order  which  they  found  in  the  Greek 
MS.  used  by  them.  All  that  can  be  inferred  is  that  the  Greek 
original  of  Ss  had  the  order:  Matt.,  Mark,  Luke,  John,  while  the  Greek 
original  of  Sc  had  :  Matt.,  Mark,  John,  Luke.  It  would  be  hazardous 
to  affirm  that  a  Greek  MS.  with  the  order  Matt.,  Mark,  John,  Luke  is 
older  than  one  with  the  order  Matt.,  Mark,  Luke,  John,  if  no  other 
evidence  were  forthcoming. 

Now,  an  examination  of  the  two  codices  shows  at  once  that  they  are 
related  to  each  other.  They  are  not  altogether  independent  of  each 
other,  as  was  at  once  seen  by  Professor  Bensly  and  F.  C.  Burkitt,  when 
Mrs.  Lewis  showed  them  some  photographed  specimens  of  the  Sinaitic 
codex.'  This  has  not  been  questioned  since.  Nestle,  Wellhausen,  Holz- 
hey,  etc.,  all  agree  in  saying  that  the  two  codices  stand  in  a  certain 
relation  to  each  other.  What  that  relation  is  we  shall  see  later  on.  It 
is  usually  thought,  e.  g.,  by  Wellhausen  and  Holzhey,  that  Sc  is  simply 
a  recension  of  Ss ;  the  revisor  adding  those  parts  which  were  omitted 
by  Ss  and  correcting  translations  which  did  not  correspond  exactly  to 
the  Greek,  his  purpose  being  to  bring  this  translation  into  a  more  inti- 
mate harmony  with  the  Greek.  Whether  this  position  is  tenable  or 
not  will  appear  as  we  go  on.  At  all  events,  so  much  is  certain,  that 
the  two  codices  stand  in  a  close  relation  to  each  other. 

Again,  it  is  generally  accepted  that  both  Ss  and  Sc  are  translations 
from  the  Greek.  Cureton  showed  this  long  ago  for  the  gospels  which 
are  named  after  him,  in  the  preface  to  his  edition  (1858).  If  there  could 
have  been  any  doubt  whether  this  was  so,  it  was  removed  by  the  recon- 
struction of  the  Greek  text  which  underlay  the  Syriac  translation  by 
J.  R.  Crowfoot,  1 87 1,  and  Friedrich  Baethgen,  1885. 

For  the  Sinaiticus  no  such  reconstruction  of  the  original  Greek  has 
been  made   as  yet,  though  Adalbert  Merx  tells   us  that  he  began  to 

*  Cf.  Carl  Holzhey,  Der  neuentdeckie  Codex  Syrus  Sinaiticus  untersucht  (Miin- 
chen,  1896),  p.  45. 

^  The  Four  Gospels  in  Syriac,  p.  v. 


PRELIM  IN  A  RY  IN  VES  TIG  A  TIONS  5 

translate  Matthew  into  Greek,  abandoning,  however,  this  plan  to  bring 
out  his  German  translation.  The  question  whether  Ss  is  a  translation 
from  the  Greek  is  more  important  than  might  appear  at  first  glance. 
If  it  can  be  proved  that  it  is  from  a  Greek  original,  then  its  relation  to 
the  Western  Text  is  clearer  ;  it  cannot  be  that  it  is  a  translation  from  the 
old  Latin,  as  I  inclined  to  think  for  a  time,*  nor  can  any  other  theory 
hold  good. 

Fortunately  there  are  some  indications  which  place  it  beyond  doubt 
that  the  underlying  text  of  Ss  is  Greek  : 

1.  The  version  retains  Greek  words  and  writes  them  simply  in 
Syriac  form:  John  ii  :  i8,  o-raSiov ;  ti  144,  etc.,  o-ovSa/aiof ;  11  :  54, 
irapprjcria ;  12:3,  Xirpa,  vapSos,  ttio-tikos  ;  6:13,  k6<j>lvo<;  ;  12:6,  etc., 
yXwaaoKO/xov ;  14:  16,  etc..  irapa.KXr)TO<;  ;  18:3,  etc.,  (nreLpa,  A.a/H7ras  ; 
18  :  28,  etc.,  rjy^ixtov.  Matt.  8  :  5,  etc.,  ;(iXt'ap;)(OS  ;  8  :  9,  aTpaTL(x)Tt]<>  ;  12:41, 
Ktijpvyfia.  Mark  15:44,  etc.,  KevTvpitov.  Luke  13:34,  etc.,  trpaiTiapiov  ; 
23:  53.  apiafxa." 

2.  There  are  incorrect  translations  in  Ss  which  can  be  explained  only 
on  the  assumption  that  a  Greek  MS.  was  used":  Matt.  10  :  40,  oAAots 
instead  of  the  correct  dAX'  oTs  ;  13  :  48,  eis  ayaOd  for  eis  ayy>;  (or  dyycTu). 
Luke  4  :  30,  Kpcp-aaai  for  Kp-qp-vtaai  ;  19:4,  (tvkos  fxoipia'i  for  avKop-opea  ; 
21  :  46,  iv  (TToats  for  iv  aToAats.     John   7  :  35,  anepixa  [cnropd)  for  SuKnropd. 

3.  There  is  at  least  one  interpretatory  phrase  which  shows  as  clearly 
as  possible  that  Ss  used  a  Greek  original :  John  i  :  42,  "Cephas,  which 
is  being  interpreted  wfo  Greek,  Peter." 

These  arguments  are  conclusive.  It  would  not  be  difficult,  how- 
ever, to  point  out  Greek  constructions  in  the  Syriac,  if  it  were  neces- 
sary. It  is  already  plain  that  both  codices  are  based  on  a  Greek 
original. 

But  now,  though  Ss  and  Sc  are  closely  related  to  each  other,  and 
though  they  are  translations  from  the  Greek,  yet  Sc  is  not  merely  a 
recension  of  Ss,  or  7>ue  versa,  nor  is  the  Greek  text  underlying  Ss  the 
same  as  that  which  Sc  used. 

To  keep  the  two  points  distinct,  we  will  prove  each  one  separately. 

*  Cf.  the  interesting  colophon  in  the  MS.  of  the  fifth  century  described  by  Gwil- 
liam  in  Siudia  Biblica,  1  :  "  Finished  is  the  holy  gospel,  the  preaching  of  Mark  the 
evangelist,  which  he  spake  in  Roman,  in  the  city  of  Rome." 

'For  other  examples  see  Holzhey,  pp.  10,  11. 

'''  Cf.  Wellhausen,  "  Der  syrische  Evangelienpalimpsest  vom  Sinai,"  Nachr.  v. 
d.  Kgl.  Ges.  d.  Wis.  z.  Gott.,  Phil.-hist.  CI.,  1895,  Heft  I  ;  and  especially  C.  Holzhey, 
pp.  10,  II. 


6  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

First,  then,  Sc  is  not  a  mere  recension  of  Ss.  The  texts  have,  in 
spite  of  their  close  alliance,  so  many  differences  that  it  is  altogether 
improbable  that  the  one  is  simply  a  recension  of  the  other,  occasioned 
by  the  desire  of  Sc's  author  to  bring  the  Syriac  text  more  closely  into 
harmony  with  the  Greek,  correcting  and  adding  the  omissions  of  Ss 
and  omitting  the  occasional  small  additions  which  Ss  has  allowed  itself 
to  make. 

Though  this  theory  is  very  attractive,  and  as  set  forth,  for  instance, 
by  Holzhey,  seemingly  irresistible,  because  of  its  forceful  logic  and  its 
historical  probability,  it  is  not  warranted  by  the  facts.  If  it  were  a 
mere  recension,  we  should  not  find  the  many  differences  in  passages 
where  the  Greek  is  evidently  the  same  in  both  versions.  There  are 
grammatical,  lexical,  and  material  differences  in  such  numbers — as 
will  be  shown  —  that  it  is  impossible  to  account  for  them  by  the 
above  theory. 

i.  Grammatical  differences:  i.  Different  tenses. —  (a)  Perfect  for 
imperfect:  Matt.  11:27;  12:25;  17:20;  18:15;  22:24. 
Luke  8  :  2,  35  ;  11:7,18;  14:1,29.  John  6  :  26. — (^)  Perfect 
forparticiple  :  Matt.  13:3;  15  :  5  ;  19  :  17,  21  ;  21  :  38  ;  22  :  23. 
Luke  7  :  44,  47;  8:4,  13,  49;  9  :  41,  45  ;  10  :  26;  11  :  28; 
17:6,  12;  18:15;  22:  60;  23:1 4,  40,  42  ;  24  :  18.  John  6  :  36, 
63;  7:26,  39,  46,  47,  48. —  {c)  Perfect  for  infinitive:  Matt. 
4:17;  5:17;  16:12.  Luke  10  :  40.  John  7  :  44. —  (</)  Imper- 
fect for  participle:  Matt.  5:46;  10:39;  12:33;  20:13,18, 
23;   21  :23.     Luke  11:4,  10;    13  :25;    17  :  21  ;    18  :  5,  7,  16,  17  ; 

21  :  26.  John  7  :  36. — (<?)  Imperfect  for  infinitive:  Matt.  2  :  22  ; 
3:15;  5:42;  13:9'  17-43;  14:19;  18:4;  21:46.  Luke 
8:32;  9:2;  11:5;  17:31.  John  7  :44.— (/)  Jussive  for 
imperative  :  Matt.  5  :  43^  Luke  9  :  5. —  {g)  Different  formation 
of  imperative :  Ss  forms  the  imperative  of  '^i)  and  ]z]  mostly 
(not  always,  cf.  Matt.  4:10;  6:31)  with  the  first  ] ,  Sc  never. 
Ss  =  '\i|,|4;     Sc  =  '^i,1z.      Matt.   2:19;     5:41;      11:28; 

22  :  4.      Luke  9  :  59  ;    10:3;    16:2. 

2.  Different  conjugations.— (a)  Ettafal  for  Ethpeel  and  Eth- 
paal:"  Matt.  1:23;  2:3;  11:7;  12:20;  13:53;  23:12. 
Luke  1 1  :  50,  51;  18:14;  20:18.  John  5  :  7. — {b)  Ethp.  for 
Peal:  Matt.  1:21,  23;  5:13,  22;  17:20.  Luke  10:34; 
11:42',    46;     12:32;     21:26;     24:4.     John    3:8;      6:33; 

"  Cf.  NOLDEKE,  §  159. 


PRELIM  IN  A  R  V  INVES  TIG  A  TIONS  7 

14:21. —  {c)  Ethp.  for  Peal  participle  passive:  Matt.  4:14; 
18  :  17.  Luke  10  :  20.  John  3:27. 
ii.  Lexical  differences :  i.  Verbs.  —  I  counted  more  than  no  differ- 
ences in  verbs  in  the  two  codices,  and  I  am  sure  that  there  are 
still  more.  These  are  evenly  distributed  over  the  gospels  — 
about  86  in  Matt.,  32  in  Luke,  22  in  John. 

2.  Nouns. —  I  catalogued  about  123  differences  in  nouns,  and  there 
are  rather  more  than  less  —  55  in  Matt.,  57  in  Luke,  11  in  John. 
There  are  also  nouns  of  the  same  stem,  but  of  different  forma- 
tion, used  —  4  in  Matt,  and  3  in  Luke. 

3.  Adjectives. — There  are  naturally  not  so  many,  but  enough  ;  e.g.  : 
Matt.3:ii;  13:48;  14:3°'  3^  ;  15:32;  22:38;  23:6; 
Luke  7: 43;  11:46;  12:7;  14:20;  15:7;  17:15;  19:18; 
20  :  30.     John   3  :  26. 

4.  Adverbial  expressions.^ — -Matt.  3:16;  13:5;  14:27,31.  Luke 
12:36;    17:7;    15:8;    24:25.     John  5: 9,  etc. 

5.  Prepositions. — John  3:21,  24,  29,  31,  34  ;    4  :  2,  9,  18  ; 
6:33;   7:1.      Matt.  1:22;     2:3,  12;     4:14;    8:17; 
12:17;    15:1;     17:24;    20:20.      Luke  2  :  7  ;     12:16; 
22  :  45  ;  etc.,  etc. 

6.  Particles. —  Matt.  1:24;  2:2;  4:4;  6:1,  2,  6,  7; 
Luke  12: 37;  17:18,  37;  20:17;  22:70;  22:29; 
John  I  :  28,  38,  39  ;   11:37;  etc.,  etc. 

iii.    Different  phrases  and  constructions :     Matt.  1:16,   25;  4:6,  21,22, 
24,25;  5:2;   13:4;   14:4;    17:15;    18:3,8;    19:22;   22:25, 
28,30.     Luke  8: 4,    31;    9:10;     18:15;    19:34,    39;    20:16. 
John  4:  24;  5:19;  6:9;  etc.,  etc.    Many  other  passages  could 
be  cited. 
In  considering  these  grammatical,  lexical,  and  material  differences, 
one  must  not  leave  out  of  account  that  many  chapters  cannot  be  com- 
pared  because  they  are  wanting  in  the  one  or  the  other,  or  in  both; 
so  the  entire  gospel  of   Luke  and  whole  chapters  of  the  other  gospels. 
A  pretty  accurate  idea  of    how  greatly  the  two  texts  differ    may  be 
got  by  looking  through  Bonus'  careful  collation,  which  fills  a  consid- 
erable volume,  and  it  will  be  noticed  that  they  are  not  only  numerous, 
but  important  differences." 

"Orthographical  differences  have  very  little  to  do  with  the  argument;  one  could 
place  alongside  of  Holzhey's  orthographical  lists  others  which  would  prove  the  con- 
trary. 


5: 

I3i 

1 1  ; 

18: 

15 

:  I  , 

13  : 

54 

23 

■l 

8  NEIV  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

If  the  one  is  simply  a  recension  of  the  other,  one  asks  in  vain  why 
there  should  be  so  many  variations,  which  dispose  one  at  times  to 
think  that  the  two  texts  are  not  at  all  related  to  each  other.'^  They  can- 
not be  explained  on  the  ground  of  a  different  dialect,  so  that  the 
author  had  to  adjust  the  translation  to  the  language  which  the  people 
of  that  section  of  Syria  spoke  in  which  he  lived  ;  because  the  expres- 
sion which  the  author  of  Sc  substituted  for  an  expression  in  Ss  will 
occur  also  in  another  passage  in  Ss.  There  is  no  system  in  the  variations 
which  would  lead  one  to  suspect  simple  dialectical  differences.  It  is 
true,  some  differences  might  be  explained  in  that  way,  e.g.,  -  "nml , 
''^^-Q-^ ,  but  even  that  would  be  difficult,  because  the  one  verb  is  not 
confined  to  either  text  —  the  substitution  is  not  consistently  carried 
out.  However  that  may  be  in  single  cases,  a  theory  of  dialec- 
tical differences  does  not  do  justice  to  the  differences  as  a  whole, 
though  it  may  explain  a  few.  Nor  is  it  plausible  that  the  author  of  Sc 
should  have  exchanged  just  as  he  pleased  verbs  and  nouns  and  phrases 
and  constructions.  That  would  be  a  rather  too  capricious  and  unscru- 
pulous procedure. 

Another  point,  though  not  of  so  great  importance,  is  the  fact  that 
Sc  introduces  again  Greek  words  into  the  text  which  Ss  has  already 
rendered  by  good  Syriac  terms;  e.g.:^*  Matt.  5  :  i8, /aoSios  ;  14:1, 
T€Tpapxo'5  ;  14  :  36,  crToX.r} ;  18:7,  dvdyKrj  ;  18  :  10,  TrpocrwTrov,  Luke  23  :  25, 
aipcWs.  If  one  looks  at  this  fact  without  prejudice,  it  is  at  least 
strange  that  Sc,  if  it  be  a  mere  recension  of  Ss,  should  have  given  up 
good  translations  which  it  found  already  in  Ss,  and  should  have  trans- 
lated them  by  simple  transcription  of  the  respective  Greek  words. 
The  explanation  suggested,'^  that  this  is  due  to  Sc's  endeavor  to 
conform  his  text  more  closely  to  the  Greek,  even  at  cost  of  good 
Syriac,  is,  to  say  the  least,  artificial. 

Again,  the  many  omissions,  as  they  are  called,  of  Ss  and  his  slight 
additions  might  be  used  as  an  argument  for  the  proposition  that  Sc 
is  not  merely  a  recension  of  Ss.  They  might  be  explained  in  this 
way  :  Ss,  not  intending  to  give  a  literal  and  precise  translation, 
endeavored  only  to  make  a  good,  popular  one;  in  doing  so  he 
omitted  phrases,  clauses,  and  sometimes  whole  verses ;  in  one  case  an 
entire  section.  They  were  not  important  for  him,  gave  no  new  light, 
and  could  therefore  well  be  omitted.  The  result  would  be  only  a  more 
forcible  and  popular  translation.     In  the  same  way  he  thought  it  of 

'3  Cf.  Nestle,  T/ieoL  Lit.-Zeitung,  I.  c. 

'^HOLZHEV,  p.   II. 


PRELIM  IN  A  RY  IN  VES  TIG  A  TIONS  9 

little  importance  to  add  a  word  or  phrase  now  and  then,  if  only  the 
text  thereby  became  more  readable  and  plainer. 

Now,  when  Sc  came  to  revise  this  text  of  Ss,  he  faithfully  added 
those  parts  which  had  been  omitted  by  Ss,  and  struck  out  those  addi- 
tions which  Ss  had  permitted  himself  to  make.  The  result  of  this 
revision  would  be  a  text  which  was  more  like  the  Greek,  though  per- 
haps not  yet  an  altogether  literal  translation,  since  even  Sc's  desire 
was  to  present  a  good  popular  piece  of  work  rather  than  a  slavish 
imitation  of  the  Greek. 

Were  the  additions  of  Sc,  filling  out  those  places  which  Ss  omitted, 
and  the  omissions  of  the  arbitrary  additions  of  Ss  the  only  things 
which  are  different  in  the  two  texts,  then,  of  course,  this  explanation 
would  be  correct.  But  as  the  case  lies,  the  other  differences,  grammatical, 
lexical,  and  material,  are  too  many ;  they  alone  are  sufficient  to  show 
that  Sc  is  not  merely  a  recension  of  Ss.  If  this  is  taken  into  account, 
the  argument  from  the  additions  and  omissions  gains  its  full  weight,  and 
confirms  the  thesis  that  Sc  is  not  a  mere  recension  of  Ss. 

Many  of  the  material  differences  find  their  explanation  in  the 
fact  that  Ss  presupposes  a  different  Greek  original  from  Sc's  Greek 
text. 

The  proof  for  this  lies  not  so  much  in  the  use  of  different  phrases, 
as,  e.  g.,  in  such  passages  as  Matt.  5  :  2,  where  Ss—  rjpx'^To  Xiyuv  atrrot?  ; 
Sc  =  KoX  avoL$a<i  to  (xro/xa  avTov  iSi8a(TK€v  avTous  Xe'ycov  ;  but  rather  in  the 
omissions  and  additions  of  Ss. 

First  of  all  it  should  be  noted,  in  regard  to  the  omissions  of  Ss,  that 
they  are  not  the  work  of  the  arbitrary  translator,  who  has  been  accused 
of  omitting  and  adding  as  he  saw  fit,  if  it  only  made  his  translation 
better,  more  forceful  and  popular.  Now,  this  is  unwarranted  by  the 
facts.  Ss  is  more  faithful  to  his  text  than  he  has  been  supposed  to  be. 
There  are  many  cases,  and  those  are  the  most  important,  where  we  can 
put  our  finger  on  the  same  omissions  and  additions  in  other  MSS. 
This  makes  it  highly  probable,  if  not  certain,  that  the  Greek  MS.  of 
Ss  did  not  have  the  passages  omitted  in  the  translation,  and  had  those 
which  we  call  additions. 

Of  course,  he  would  omit  passages  which  are  merely  explanatory 
phrases  in  Greek  for  words  which  needed  no  interpretation  for  a  Syrian. 
But  even  in  regard  to  these  one  may  doubt  whether  they  were  in  the 
original  Greek  or  not ;  e.  g.  .- 

Matt.  4:18,  Tov  Acyo/icvov  IleT/aov ;  27:33,  o  ccttiv  Kpaviou  Tottos  A.cyd- 
/U.CVOS  ;   27  :  46,  tout'  iuTiv  ©€€  /xov,  ^ee  /xou,  tva  ti /u,£  eyKaTc'AtTres.     Mark  3:17, 


10  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

o  i(TTiv  Ylol  ^povT7]<; ;  7:34,  o  iariv  ^lavoiyO-qri  \  15:34,  o  1<ttlv  ficdepfjLn- 
vcvo/xevov  'O  ^cos  /xov  [6  6e6s  fiov]  cis  Tt  cyKareAiTres  /u.€.  John  I  :  38,  o  Aeyerai 
fit6epfir]V€v6ix€vov  AtSao-KaXe  ;  1:41,  o  €<tt6v  /xeOepiuirjvevofxevov  XpicTTO^  ;  4  :  25, 
6  Xeyo/Acvos  X/aio-ros;  9:7,  o  ipfir/veveTai  'ATrecTTaX^evos ;  Ii:i6;  20:24; 
21  :2,  6  Aeyo/xevos  AtSu/Aos ;  20  :  16,  o  Acyerai  AiSao-KaXe. 

In  any  case,  omissions  like  these  are  natural ;  we  expect  them.  Two 
such  interpretations  of  Hebrew  and  Aramaean  terms,  which  were 
necessary  in  Greek,  but  surperfluous  in  Syriac,  have  remained  in  the 
the  text;  viz.:  Matt,  i  :  23  "  Immanuel,  which  is  interpreted,  God  with 
us  ;"  and  John  i  :  42,  "Cephas,  which  is  being  interpreted  into  Greek, 
Peter."  Whether  these  two  passages  have  been  left  merely  by  accident, 
or  whether  they  go  to  prove  that  Ss  was  so  faithful  to  his  original  that 
he  would  add  even  such  matters  as  were  unimportant  or  superfluous  in 
a  Syriac  translation,  if  they  were  in  the  original  Greek  text,  is  impos- 
sible to  decide  dogmatically.  But  it  is  certain  that,  even  if  he  omitted 
those  passages  because  he  saw  that  they  were  superfluous,  the  omis- 
sions are  entirely  natural,  and  do  by  no  means  reflect  on  the  faithful- 
ness of  his  translation.  He  is,  indeed,  a  very  faithful  translator;  he 
does  not  omit  passages  which  seem  to  him  unimportant,  nor  does  he 
add  when  he  likes.  We  shall  see  that  the  most  important  omissions 
as  well  as  additions  are  paralleled  in  other  MSS.,  especially  in  those 
of  the  western  group.  In  the  list  which  is  given  below  I  have  taken 
only  the  most  important  omissions  and  additions,  and  noted  down 
when  the  omission  was  paralleled  by  one  or  more  MSS.,  when  Westcott 
and  Hort(=W-H)  or  Tischendorf  (=  Tisch.)  bracketed  it  or  put  it  on 
the  margin.  I  have  simply  noted  this,  because  that  implies  that  there 
is  a  good  deal  of  doubt  whether  the  verse  or  phrase  belongs  in  the 
text  or  not.  As  the  basis  for  the  comparison  I  have  used  West- 
cott and  Hort's  text.  Thus,  when  W-H  omit  passages  which  Ss  omits 
also,  no  notice  has  been  taken  of  them.  This  reduces  the  number  of 
the  otherwise  very  numerous  omissions. 

Ss  omits  Matt,  i  :  25  (partly),  K  also  ;  4  :  24  partly  ;'=  5  :  30,  D  also  ;  5  :  47, 
K  also;  6:5;  9:34,  Da  K  also,  W-H  bracket;  10:13,  rj  d^ia,  D  also; 
10 :  19,  7r<DS  r;,  a  K,  etc.,  also;   12  :47,  W-H  margin,  Tisch.  bracket ;   16:2,3, 

'5  C/.  Blass,  £vg/.  Luc,  praefatio,  p.  Ixxvi :  Apud  Matt.  4  :  24  absunt  ab  Syro  Lew. 
verba  koX  d-n-^XOev  17  olko^  avrov  els  S\t)v  ttjv  "Zvplav,  turn  ibidem  /caJ  5aiixovi^oix4vov% 
Kal  <TeK7)VLa^on.ivovs  ((cai  aiK.  et.  K  om.)  Kal  Trapa\vTLKovs  ;  paulloque  post  (25)  pro  Kal 
T)Ko\oijdr]<rav  avrf  8x^<"  ttoWoI  Kri  habet  idem  "  et  facta  magna  multitudine  "  :  in 
quibus  omnibus  nisi  Tatiani  licentiam  sive  alius  Syri  interpretis  mecum  agnoscere 
velis,  non  invenies  e-xplicationem  differentiae.     Nullane  ergo  huic  testi  fides  habenda  ? 


PRELIM  IN  A  R  Y  INVESTIGA  TIONS  I  I 

W-H  bracket ;  21  :  44,  VV-H  bracket,  Tisch.  om. ;  22  :  4,  to  aptcrrov  /xou  -qroi- 
/iacra,  ot  ravpoL  fiov  Kai  ra  (TiTtaTa  TtOvixtva ;  Sc  om.  only  :  nai  ra  cnTLcrTa 
TeOvfxtva. —  Mark  7  :  8,  a<^£VTes  yap  rrjv  tvroXrjv  tov  ®eov,  KpareiTe  r-qv  irapa- 
^oviv  TUiv  avOpwTTOV',  9  :  3>  oia  yva<f)ev<;  ctti  tt/?  yrj<;  ov  BwaraL  ovtw?  AevKavat, 
X  a  n  om.  also  ;  9:49,  wacra  yap  Bvaia  a\t  aXiad-qcreTai,  W-H  put  it  on  the 
margin,  Tisch.  om.  ;  10:2,  irpoaeXOovre'i  ^apLaaioi,  D  a  b  K  om.,  brack- 
eted by  W-H  ;  10  :  42,  o  Se  Irj(rov<; —  80/couvTcs  —  Kai  ot  fieyaXoi  awrwi'  Kare^ov- 
auL^ovcnv  avTwv ;  I  I  :  8,  aXXot  8e  0"Tt/?aSas  KOt/'avTCS  ck  tcuv  aypotv  \  12:4, 
entire  verse  ;  13:9,  BAeTrcTe  8e  v/xets  cavrows  —  om.  also  by  Jj^*  —  Kat  a?  cruva- 
ytoyas  SaprjaeaOe  ;  14  :65,  Kat  TreptKaAuTrTetv  to  irpoainirov  avTov,  D  a  f  om. ; 
14:42,  Kat  -q^-q  oif/La<;  yevofJievrj?  CTrct  r]v  irapauKtvq,  o  (.aTi  npo  .  .  .  ;  l6:8, 
aTro  Tou  fivrjfiuov.  et;^e  8e  avTas  rpo/xos  Kai  CKo-Tao-is ;  16:9-20,  om.  J^  ,  B. — 
Luke  6:40,  KaTripTi(Tp.(.vo<i  Se  Tras  eo^Tat  ws  o  StSatTKaAos  avTou,  FA*  48*"  om.; 

7  :  7i  810  ov8c  f.fi.avTov  rj^ioio-a  Trpos  o-e  cA^civ,  D  63,  240,  244,  a  b  c  e   ff  °  *  om. ; 

8  :  43,  ijiTts  £is  larpovs  Trpocravakwcracra  oXov  tov  jSiov ;  D:  t/v  ovSe  ets  ta^vcv 
depairevaai — om.  the  rest;  Ss  :  ouk  tcr^uo-ev  a7r'  ovScvos  ^cpaTrev^T^vai ; 
9:54,  a>5  /cat  HXeta?  tiroLrjcrev,  W-H  margin,  Tisch.  om.  ;  9:55,  56.  Kai 
ciTrcv,  ovK  oi8aT£  TTotou  TTveiJ/jtaTos  CCTTC  to  o-ojo-at,  W-H  on  margin,  Tisch. 
om. ;  10:41,  42,  /X£ptp.m9  Kat  dopvjial^rj  Trept  TroWa,  oXiytov  8e  €(ttiv 
Xpeta  rj  £vos,  W-H  ^  \  a  b  e  £f*  om.,  D  also  except  doavfSalrj ;  i  i  :  1 1,  apTOv, 
p.rf  XlOov  £7rt  8a)o-£t  avTou,  W-H  margin  ;  1 1  :  36,  oXov  —  p.r}  €)(0V  tl  /iX£pos  — 
£aTat  <^wT£tvov  oAov,  D  a  b  e  ff  ^,  Sc  om.  also  ;'*  11:  53,  Kat  a7roo-TO/xaTt^£tv 
auTov  7r€pt7rA£tovoji',  W-H  margin;  11  :  54,  e;'£8p£i;ovT£s  avTov  drjptvaai  Tt  tK 
(TTOfJMTO^  avTov,  W-H  ^  ^;  D:  a<f>opp.r)V  Ttva  Xa^av  avrov,  om.  £i'£8pevovT£s  ; 
Sc.  also ;  12  :g,  om.  e ;  12:39,  ^ypy}yopr]<T€.v  av,  W-H  ^  ^  margin  simply: 
OVK  av,  so  Tisch.  in  text;  14:27,  om.  M*Rr  al.  mu. ;  16:7,  Kat  A£y£t  auTu» 
Af^at  (TOV  TO  ypafx/JM;  16:  18,  avro  av8pos,  D  om. ;  19:25,  D  69,  etc.,  Sc  om. ; 
19  :  33,  £t7rov  01  KvpioL  avTOv  irpos  auTovs  Tt  Av£T£  toi'  TTOiXov,  Sc  also  ;  20  :  36, 
Ktti  vtot  eia-iv  TOV  6eov,  W-H  ^  ^,  some  MSS.  om.  Kat  utot  ettriv ;  21  :  10, 
tote  €A£y£v  auTois,  D  e  1  a  ff*  Sc  om.;  22:43,  44,  bracketed  twice  by  W-H; 
23:10-12;  23:34a,  W-H  bracket  twice;  23:51,  odtos  ovk  rjv  avyKara- 
TtOei/xevo'i  TYj  ^ovXr)  Kat  ty]  7rpa^£t  avT<x>v ;  24:42,  Kat  aTro  p,£Atcro-toti  KrjpLOv, 
W-H  margin,  Tisch.  om. ;  24:52,  £ts  tov  ovpavov  —  irpoaKwrjaavTo;  avTov, 
W-H  bracket,  Tisch.  om. — John  l  :  38,  ^£ao-ap,£vo5  auTous  aKoAou^owTas  ;  4  :  9, 
ovar)<;  yvvaiKos  2ap,ap€tTt8os ;  I  2  :  8,  D  om. ;  1 3  :  32,  £u  o  ^eos  eSo^aa-Orj  ev  auTw, 
omission    well    attested;    13:34,    tva  Kat   up.£ts   aya7raT£    aAA>;Aous,   XT   al '°, 

"q:  Si  ergo  corpus  tuum  lucernam  non  habens  lucidam  obscurum  est,  quanto 
magis  cum  lucerna  luceat,  inluminat  te. 

f :  Si  enim  corpus  quod  in  te  est  lucernam  non  habuerit  lucentem  tibi  tenebrosa 
est,  quanto  magis  autem  lucerna  tua  fulgens  lucebit  tibi. 


12  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

c  e  ff '  om.;  14  :  10,  to.  prffjiara  to  avros  Trotet  ra  €pya  ;  14:11;  14:14,  XA  i.  22 
2P*  6p*  al5  b  fu  Syr  *"■  Arm  ='°'' et '^'•'^  om.  ;  16:3;  17:11,  w  SeSwKas  to  77/u.cis, 
Hil  *'''•  '"^'^  om.;  20:7;  21:15,  abc  eff^  om.  TrAeov  tovtwv,  a  e  om. 
av  otSas  OTt  <^iXw  (re;  21  :  16,  a  om.  (tv  oiSas  ort  <^iXcd  ere;  21  125,  oo-a  —  ouSc 
avTov  ot/xat  —  ra  ypa^o/ACva  f^i/SXLa,  Tisch.  om.  entire  verse,  a  b  e  ff'  et 
alia  autem  [b  quidem  a  om.]  multa  fecit  Jesus  =  Ss,  L  n  ti  ariva  eav  ypa<f>r)Tai 

The  result  of  this  comparison  cannot  be  doubtful.  It  places  the 
translator  of  Ss  in  the  right  light ;  he  is  very  faithful  to  his  original. 
Though  there  are  some  omissions  which  cannot  be  duplicated  in  other 
MSS.,  yet  most  of  them  can.  This  leads  us  to  think  that  these  other 
omissions  also  were  not  his  own ;  he  found  them  already  in  his  Greek 
text. 

The  same  will  be  seen  in  his  additions,  which  are  said  to  be  due  to 
Ss'  idiosyncrasies.  They  also  can  be  duplicated  —  most  of  them  at  least. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  the  additions  are  small,  and  not  of  so  great 
importance  as  the  omissions.  The  limited  number  given  in  the  foot- 
note below''  will  therefore  suffice  to  show  that  they  also  are  not  made 
by  him  in  order  to  make  his  text  clearer,  but  they  are  there  because 
they  were  in  his  original  Greek. 

Having  shown  that  Ss  is  faithful  to  his  original,  and  that  he  repro- 
duces his  Greek  text  accurately,  we  are  ready  to  see  that  the  original 
of  Ss  must  have  been  different  from  that  of  Sc.  Sc  uses  a  much  fuller 
Greek  text  than  Ss.  Here  are  some  verses  which  are  not  in  Ss,  but  are 
in  Sc  :  Matt,  i  :  Sl>;  4  :  243,-  5  :  25,  30,  47  ;  6:5;  8:5  (partly) ;  23  :  14  ; 
Mark  16  :  9-20  ;  Luke  8:43;  9  :  55,  56;  i2:38<^/  22  :  43,  44;  23:  12- 
i4>  34;  John  5:12;  14:10,  II.  There  are  few  additions  which  Ss 
has  and  which  are  not  in  Sc  :   Luke  1 1  :  36  ;  14:13;   19  :  32  ;  23  :  20  ; 

"  Matt.  10  :  23,  "  and  if  they  persecute  you  in  the  other  city,  flee  ye  to  another." 
W-H  place  it  in  the  margin,  which  shows  that  there  are  at  least  some  texts  which 
have  it.  27  :  16,  "Jesus  "  is  added  to  Barabbas.  This  we  find  also  in  the  Palestinian 
S3T"iac,  which  shows  that  it  was  not  an  addition  of  Ss,  but  that  there  were  Greek  texts 
which  had  this  addition. —  John  3  : 8,  Ss  adds  Trvev/jLa  de  0  6eos ;  c/.  Tischendorf's  note, 
which  shows  that  Ss  does  not  stand  alone  in  doing  this. —  Luke  23  :  37,  Ss  (-j-  Sc)  adds 
Xatpe  ....  /cat  eTrfOrjKav  ewi  Tr}v  K€<pa\rjv  avrov  a're<pavov  aKavdivov. —  D  c  X^'-P^  .... 
TrepiTfOevTei  (d  imponentes  c  imposuerunt  autem)  avTCj)  Kai  aKaudivov  <rT€<pavov. —  John 
20  :  16,   Ss  adds  :  Kai  wpoffedpaixev  a^affdai.  avrov.     S  "^^    13.  346.  g.  gat.  mm  Syr  p  et*" 

Qyj.4.  io«3  also.     12:3,  Ss  has  with  D  d,  etc effudit  super  caput  ihesu  recumbentis. 

—  Luke  23  :  48,  Ss,  "  Saying  '  woe  unto  us,  what  hath  befallen  us !  Woe  unto  us  for  our 
sins.'"  Sc  has  this  also.  So  has  the  gospel  of  Peter.  Very  similar  is  g  i  :  "Vae 
nobis,  quae  facta  sunt  hodie  propter  peccata  nostra,  appropinquavit  enim  desolatio 
Hierosolem." — Matt.  27:28,   Ss  adds.  irop<pvpovv ;  so  also  D   157  abcfff',  etc. 


PRELIM  IN  A  R  V  INVES  TIG  A  TIONS  1 3 

John    6:13;    none    of    them    are,    moreover,   entire  verses,  but    only 
parts  of  verses. 

Another  argument  for  the  difference  of  texts  lies  in  translations 
in  which  Ss  is  paralleled  by  other  texts,  and  Sc  also,  but  different  from 
those  representing  Ss  : 

E.  g..  Matt.  3:16,  where  Ss  =  pa^?  IZaio,^  =  Iv  eiSci  Trcpto-rcpas  ;  Sc  = 
jja^  ^1  =  <ii(rci  TTC/aicTTcpav  =  W-H,  Tisch.  The  text  of  Ss  is  represented 
by  Ev.  Ebion. :  xat  to?  ai/r^X^ev  aito  tov  uSaros,  rjvoiytjcrav  ot  ovpavot  Kat  ci8c 
TO  TTvevfia  TOV  6(.ov  TOV  ayiov  ev  etSet  Treptore/jas  Ka6e\6ov<rr]'i  kixi  a,(Te\6ovar]i 
€is  aVTOv;  cf.  Ephraim,  Diatessaron,  too.  5:2,  Ss :  y\p\i.TO  Xiytiv  avTots  ; 
Sc :  Kox  dvot^as  to  orTOfxa  ovtov  eSt'Sacr/cev  avTov<i  Acywv,  the  regular  text. 
27:16,  17,  Ss :  'Irja-ovv  Bapay8/3av  —  witnesses  see  in  Tischendorf;  Sc  : 
Bapa^^av,  regular  text. —  Luke  2  :  48,  Ss  :  o  irarrip  crov  Kayco,  on  the  difference 
in  the  tradition  cf.  Tisch.;  Sc  :  iJ/aeis.  ii  :  36,  Ss  has  the  verse,  Sc  omits  it 
with  D  a  b  c  ff^  i.  11  :  13,  Ss:  86fw.Ta  dyaOd,  for  witnesses  for  this  reading 
cf.  Tisch. ;  Sc  :  irvtvfia  ayiov,  the  accepted  reading.  1 1 :  38,  Ss  :  idav/xaa-tv,  so 
Tisch.,  W-H  ;  Sc  :  rjpiaTO  8taKpivo/i.evos  ev  cavTw  Ae'yetv ;  there  are  a  number  of 
witnesses  for  this  reading. —  Matt.  21:31,  Ss  :  6  vaTcpo's,  D  and  others; 
Sc  :  6  Tr/jtoTOs,  Tischendorf 's  text.  3  :4,  Ss  :  aypos  ]?q4  ,  so  also  the  Palest.  Syriac 
and  the  Diat. ;  Sc  :  ayptos  Ij-o  ,  all  others. —  Luke  19:32,  Ss  has  01  ciTreo-TaA- 
fievoi  Ka^ws  tlirev  awTots,  with  W-H,  Textus  Receptus,  Tischendorf;  Sc  omits 
it;  so  e  (UG). —  Matt.  5:45,  the  different  position  of  the  verses:  Ss  has 
the  regular  order,  Sc  vss.  5,  4,  paralleled  by  other  texts. 

Such  examples  show  very  clearly  that  the  two  Greek  texts  underlying 
Ssand  Sc  respectively  were  different  from  each  other.  Sc's  text  is  much 
fuller  than  Ss'.  Both  texts  are  very  old,  dating  certainly  from  the 
second  century;  but  Ss'  is  older  than  that  of  Sc ;  compare  for  this  the 
first  chapter  of  Matthew  relating  the  birth  of  Jesus,  and  the  omissions 
as  well  as  the  sometimes  curious  additions.  Add  to  this  priority  of 
Ss'  Greek  original  the  afifinity  which  exists  between  the  Sinaiticus  and 
the  Palestinian  Syriac,  and  the  fact  that  Sc's  divisions  in  the  text  are 
finer  than  those  of  Ss,'*  and  it  follows  that  Ss  is  older  than  Sc. 

We  have  now  reached  the  conclusion  that,  though  Ss  is  closely 
related  to  Sc,  though  both  are  translations  from  the  Greek,  Sc  is  no 
mere  recension  of  Ss  ;  that  the  Greek  text  underlying  them  is  not  the 
same,  Ss'  being  older ;  that  Ss  is  older  than  Sc.  Now  we  must  answer 
the  question  :  What  is,  then,  the  relation  of  Ss  to  Sc,  if  one  is  not  a 
recension  of  the  other  ? 

'■  C/.  Merx  in  his  German  translation. 


14  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

Two  answers  are  possible,  which  do  not  exclude  each  other  :  either 
the  translators  of  Ss  and  Sc  belonged  to  the  same  school,  or  they  used 
the  same  Syriac  text  (Syr.  vetus)  as  the  basis  of  their  own  translation. 

When  two  men  who  have  had  the  same  education  are  called  upon 
to  translate  a  given  piece  from  one  language  into  another,  the  ground 
stock  of  the  work  will  be  the  same,  but  in  details  the  two  translations 
will  differ.  Each  will  naturally  use  the  terms  which  lie  most 
readily  at  his  hand.  Sometimes  they  will  have  exactly  the  same 
translation ;  sometimes  the  words  which  we  mostly  find  in  the 
one  will  be  in  the  other,  and  vice  versa.  Lexical  differences  are 
inevitable.  Grammatical  differences  are  also  to  be  expected  ;  it  would 
be  strange  if  they  were  not  found.  Differences  in  the  constructions 
are  bound  to  arise,  because  no  two  men  use  the  same  constructions, 
though  they  may  have  always  been  in  the  same  school.  All  this  is 
what  we  find  in  these  two  texts,  Ss  and  Sc.  The  ground  stock  of  the 
two,  leaving  out  of  account  the  so-called  omissions  and  additions,  is 
essentially  the  same,  but  the  vocabulary  and  the  grammar  of  the  two 
are  different.  They  belong  to  the  same  school  ;  their  task  was  the  same, 
viz.,  to  translate  a  given  text  from  Greek  into  Syriac;  their  ability  was 
about  the  same ;  but  their  works  are  in  a  way  independent  of  each 
other.  The  relation  which  exists  between  the  two  proves  that  they 
belonged  to  the  same  school,  not  that  one  is  dependent  on  the  other. 

This  is  the  most  satisfactory  way  of  explaining  the  relationship  of 
the  two,  which  agree  in  so  many  parts  and  differ  so  decidedly  in  so 
many  others. 

The  other  answer,  that  both  Ss  and  Sc  used  the  same  Syriac  text  as  a 
basis  of  their  work,  might  also  explain  the  matter,  though  one  would  still 
be  at  a  loss  how  to  explain  the  many  differences.  The  groundwork 
of  Ss  and  Sc  would  be  that  of  the  Old  Syriac,  which  has  not  yet  been 
discovered.  Both  Ss  and  Sc  would  have  changed  that  text  as  to  voca- 
bulary and  grammar  pretty  much  as  they  pleased.  They  would  still  be 
independent  of  each  other  in  the  way  that  neither  of  them  made  use  of 
the  other,  both  simply  taking  the  same  text  as  a  foundation.  The  whole 
process,  however,  does  not  commend  itself  as  so  simple  in  its  solution 
of  the  difficulties." 

This  brings  up  the  question  about  the  Old  Syriac,  that  text  which 
.s  supposed  to  lie  back  of  all  the  texts  we  have.    To  speak  dogmatically 

•»  The  examples  given  by  Wellhausen  and  Nestle,  which  point  in  the  direction 
that  some  expressions  in  Sc  are  older  than  the  corresponding  expressions  in  Ss,  give 
some  foundation  to  this  theory. 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGA  TIONS  I  5 

on  this  subject  is  hazardous ;  the  data  are  too  few.  The  opinion  to 
which  I  have  come  is  as  follows  :  It  cannot  be  proved  as  yet,  and  must 
be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth.  The  very  first  gospel  translator  in  Syria 
did  not  translate  all  four  gospels,  but  one.  Which  one  of  the  four  we 
cannot  tell ;  perhaps  Mark,  perhaps  John.  This  would  meet  at  first  all 
the  requirements.  But  soon  somebody  else,  or  perhaps  the  same  man 
who  translated  the  first  gospel,  would  take  another  gospel  and  trans- 
late that  also.  The  two  would  come  together.  The  same  process 
would  be  repeated  till  all  four  gospels  were  translated.  The  different 
order  in  Ss  and  Sc  —  Ss  =  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  John ;  Sc  =  Matthew, 
Mark,  John,  Luke —  points  in  this  direction.  At  first  the  gospels  existed 
side  by  side  ;  then  they  would  be  bound  together  ;  the  order  would  vary 
in  the  different  copies.  Gradually,  through  outside  influence,  the  posi- 
tion of  Matthew  and  Mark  would  become  fixed  (or  does  the  position 
perhaps  indicate  that  they  were  first  translated  ?).  As  to  Luke  and  John 
there  was  still  some  fluctuation,  till  the  now  accepted  order :  Matthew, 
Mark,  Luke,  John,  became  established. 

This  suggestion  will  appear  still  more  plausible  when  we  come  to 
look  at  it  in  the  light  of  the  history  of  the  foundation  of  the  Syrian 
church. 

2.      The  Relation  of  Ss  and  Sc  to  P. 

It  has  long  been  recognized  that  the  Peshitta  was  not  the  original 
Old  Syriac  text.  Already  in  the  last  century  men  pointed  out  that 
this  text  must  be  the  result  of  a  development,  the  last  of  a  series  of 
which  the  other  parts  were  at  that  time  still  wanting.  But  since  the 
discovery  of  Sc  in  1842  (1858)  and  of  Ss  in  1892  the  proofs  of  this 
assertion  have  become  manifest. 

I  do  not  think,  however,  that  it  can  be  asserted  justly  that  P  is  a 
recension  of  Ss  and  Sc.  There  is  no  doubt  that  all  of  them  are  related 
to  each  other,  but  that  does  not  mean  that  P  is  a  recension  of  the 
others.  A  comparison  of  the  three  texts  shows  that  in  many  passages 
P  =  Ss  =  Sc;  that  they  have  a  good  deal  in  common.  But  there 
are  also  many  passages  where  P  agrees  with  the  one  and  differs 
from  the  other  ;  in  others  it  differs  from  both,  whether  they  be  alike  or 
different  from  each  other."  That  means  that  P  is,  indeed,  related 
to  Ss  and  Sc,  but  is  at  the  same  time  relatively  independent  of 
them ;  the  process  which  was  described  in  connection  with  Ss  and  Sc 
is  evidently  repeated  here.  As  there,  so  here,  the  translator  worked 
independently,  but  was  influenced   now  by  Ss,  now  by  Sc.     The  fact 

~  Cf.  Alb.  Bonus,  Collatio,  etc. 


l6  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

that  P  combines  the  readings  of  Ss  and  Sc  helps  us  to  determine  P's 
age,  not  absolutely,  but  relatively.  Can  it  be  said  that  P  is  the  oldest 
text,  on  which  Ss  and  Sc  base  their  translations  ?  That  would  explain 
why  P  agrees  now  with  Ss,  now  with  Sc.  But  it  would  not  explain  the 
great  differences  of  the  three  texts.  These  differences  can  be  accounted 
for  only  on  the  assumption  of  different  Greek  originals.  And  as  regards 
these  Greek  originals,  it  is  at  once  clear  that  P  does  not  present  nearly 
as  old  a  text  as  either  Ss  or  Sc,  a  fact  which  is  so  apparent  to  the 
reader  of  the  three  that  it  needs  no  further  proof.  Texts  like  Ss  and 
Sc  presuppose  a  very  old  Greek  original,  which  cannot  be  claimed 
for  P.  We  have,  then,  a  text  combining  the  readings  of  two  other 
texts,  but  using  a  later  original  than  the  two  others.  The  conclusion 
is  inevitable :  P  is  later  than  Ss  and  Sc,  by  which  it  is  influenced. 
The  motive  which  lay  at  the  basis  of  these  three  different  texts  is 
to  be  sought  in  the  desire  of  the  Syrians  to  conform  their  text  to  that 
which  was  accepted  by  the  Graeco-Roman  church."  That  desire  neces- 
sitated the  translation  of  P  especially,  but  P  is  only  one  of  the  texts 
which  originated  under  these  circumstances.  We  shall  find  others  sug- 
gested by  Aphraates  and  Ephraim. 

At  this  point  it  is  well  to  sum  up  the  results  which  we  have  reached 
thus  far  : 

1.  There  is  a  certain  kind  of  relationship  between  Ss  and  Sc  ;  they  are  not 
absolutely  independent  of  each  other. 

2.  Both  Ss  and  Sc  are  translations  from  the  Greek. 

3.  Sc  is  not  a  mere  recension  of  Ss,  nor  vice  versa. 

4.  Ss  presupposes  a  Greek  original  different  from  that  of  Sc. 

5.  Ss'  original  Greek  was  shorter  and  older  than  Sc's. 

6.  Ss  is  older  than  Sc. 

7.  The  close  resemblance  of  Ss  and  Sc  in  many  parts  and  the  difference  in 
others  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  translators  either  belonged  to 
the  same  school  or  used  the  same  Syriac  text  (the  Old  Syriac)  as  the 
basis  of  their  own  translations.  The  first  is  the  more  probable  explana- 
tion. 

8.  The  relation  of  P  to  Ss  and  Sc  is  similar  to  that  of  Ss  to  Sc.     P  is  no 

recension  of  either,  but  is  influenced  by  both,  which  is  seen   in  the  fact 
that  it  combines  the  readings  of  both. 

9.  The  original  Greek  of  P  is  younger  than  that  of  either  Ss  or  Sc. 
ID.    P  is  younger  than  Ss  and  Sc,  the  genealogy  being  :  Ss,  Sc,  P. 

"  See  also  Zahn  and  Holzhey. 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGA  TIONS  I  ^ 

J.      The  Relation  of  Ss,  Sc,  and  P  to  the  Diatessaron." 

It  is  a  great  misfortune  that  we  do  not  possess  the  original  of 
Tatian's  Diatessaron.  As  was  already  noticed,  the  determination  of 
the  priority  of  the  gospel  harmony  or  of  the  separate  gospels  has  to 
rest  wholly  on  internal  evidence.  And  this  is  very  precarious  and 
very  difficult,  because  the  text  of  Tatian's  work  has  by  no  means  been 
fixed  yet.  Though  there  are  for  the  reconstruction  of  it  the  com- 
mentary of  Ephraim  on  the  Diatessaron,  the  citations  of  Aphraates, 
the  Arabic  Diatessaron,  the  Latin  harmony  of  Victor  of  Capua,  and 
the  references  in  the  Syrian  church  fathers,  yet  these  witnesses  are 
not  all  too  reliable,  and  their  testimony  may  be  challenged.'^ 

In  addition  to  this  uncertainty  about  the  text  comes  the  fact  that 
we  do  not  know  how  faithfully  Tatian  handled  his  sources.  His  pur- 
pose was  practical  —  he  wanted  to  make  a  gospel  harmony ;  but  we  know 
from  several  sources  that  he  omitted  certain  portions  which  did  not 
please  him,  and  others  he  altered  as  he  wanted. 

We  must  keep  these  facts  in  mind  in  making  our  examination. 
And  it  may  be  said  that,  in  view  of  all  this,  an  absolutely  certain 
result  is  not  to  be  expected.  It  must  necessarily  be  largely  a  balancing 
of  arguments,  which  to  some  minds  will  preponderate  in  this,  to  others 
in  that  direction. 

"  Cf.  F.  C.  BURKITT,  in  The  Guardian,  October  31,  1894. 

"3  Ephraim's  fragments  are  of  the  greatest  value,  but  one  has  to  remember  that 
they  are  not  accessible  in  the  original,  and  also  that  he  uses  the  Peshitto,  too,  which 
is,  indeed,  his  ordinary  Bible.  He  must  often  have  mixed  the  two  together,  and 
in  some  passages  have  given  the  Peshitta  reading,  which  was  not  at  all  in  the  Diates- 
saron. 

Aphraates  is  the  only  one  who  preserves  the  citations  in  Syriac,  excepting  the 
later  church  fathers,  who  quote  from  Ephraim,  and  yet  even  he  must  be  looked  upon 
with  suspicion,  because  he  also,  as  we  shall  see,  knew  and  used  another  version  of 
the  gospels,  different  from  the  Diatessaron,  side  by  side  with  the  harmony. 

The  Arabic  Diatessaron  must  have  undergone  considerable  changes,  not  only 
owing  to  the  translations  from  one  language  into  the  other.  Peculiar  readings  will 
have  been  erased  by  orthodox  men,  so  as  to  make  the  work  more  conformed  to  the 
orthodox  New  Testament.  It  is,  perhaps,  mainly  useful  for  the  arrangement  of  the 
original  work,  for,  as  is  evident  from  Aphraates,  many  portions  which  were  harmon- 
ized by  the  original  work  are  given  here  only  in  the  translation  of  one  of  the  parallel 
passages ;  the  finely  interwoven  network  of  Tatian  has  disappeared  from  them. 

The  Latin  harmony  of  Victor  of  Capua  is  based  on  the  Vulgate,  and  so  cannot 
be  of  very  much  use,  though,  of  course,  for  the  arrangement,  and  perhaps  also  now 
and  then  for  a  text  which  the  scribe  might  not  always  have  found  in  the  Vulgate,  and 
therefore  translated  directly  from  the  Syriac,  it  might  be  of  some  use. 


1 8  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

One  thing,  however,  is  clear  and  absolutely  certain,  namely,  that 
the  two  sets  of  texts,  the  separate  and  the  interwoven  gospels,  are 
related  to  each  other,  are  dependent  one  on  the  other,  the  only  ques- 
tion being  which  is  the  earlier.^^ 

Such  agreements  as  these  are  the  best  evidence  for  the  fact  that 
the  gospel  harmony  of  Tatian  and  the  separate  gospels  stand  in  an  inti- 
mate relationship.  The  problem  before  us  now  is  :  What  is  their  relative 
age,  which  is  prior,  T  or  the  separate  gospels  ? 

We  are  at  once  confronted  with  the  question  :  How  could  the 
Diatessaron  have  had  such  a  prominence  in  the  early  Syrian  church ; 
how  could  it  have  been  used  so  widely,  if  it  was  not  the  first  gospel 
which  the  Syrians  had  ?  This  argument  in  favor  of  Tatian's  gospel 
harmony  is  of  very  little  weight.  It  seems,  of  course,  at  first  sight,  to 
stand  absolutely  in  the  way  of  the  priority  of  the  separate  gospels. 
For  how  could  it  be,  it  is  asked,  that  the  Syrians  should  have  possessed 
and  used  first  the  separate  gospels  and  then,  when  the  Diatessaron 
came,  laid  those  original  gospels  aside  and  used  only  the  Diatessaron  ? 
First  of  all,  it  is  a  pure  assumption,  which  cannot  be  verified,  that 
they  suspended  the  use  of  the  separate  gospels  entirely.  Secondly,  it 
must  not  be  overlooked  that  a  harmony  has  many  practical  advantages 
over  the  separate  gospels,  especially  for  liturgical  purposes.  Thirdly, 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  harmony  was  made  just  about  the 
time  when   Christianity  became  the  national   religion  of  Syria.     The 

^*  Evidences  of  this  relationship  are  seen  in  such  passages  as  Matt.  3  : 4,  where 
Ss  and  T  read,  instead  of  ixeki  aypiov,  fieXi  aypov  ]?a4»  ,  while  Sc,  P,  and  most  of  the 
Greek  texts  read  fieXi  aypiov.  A  reading  like  this  points  to  some  kind  of  an  affinity 
between  the  two  texts. —  3:10  (  =  Luke  3 : 9),  "HSt;  5^  ij'd^lvTi  irpb%  rr)v  pl^av  rw* 
SivSpup  KeiTttt  is  translated  by  T  and  all  the  separate  gospels,  Ss,  Sc,  P,  as  if  there  stood 
tSe,  contrary  to  all  other  witnesses  to  the  text. —  3  :  16,  Ss  and  T  read  iv  eldei  nepiffrepas, 
which  only  few  minor  witnesses  have,  while  the  great  bulk  of  the  Greek  MSS., 
together  with  Sc  and  P,  read  wcrei  (ws)  TrepKXTep&v. — 13:48,  Ss,  Sc,  T  translate  the 
words  ffvv^Xe^av  rh  /caXd  els  A7777  (or  dyyeia)  as  if  they  had  read  (rvyiXe^av  roi  KaXh  «/j 
iyaOd. —  Mark  6:8,  Ss  translates  in  'iva  fx-qUv  a'tpcjai  els  odby  el  firj  pd^8ov  fji6pov,  the 
^d^Sov  with  shavtd,  evidently  to  bring  this  statement  into  harmony  with  Matt.  10:10 
and  Luke  9  :3,  where  the  pd^dov  is  not  allowed.  P.  has  shavtd  in  all  three  passages, 
Sc  has  it  in  Luke  9  :  3,  Matt.  10  :  10  being  missing.  Now,  Tatian's  Diatessaron  has  : 
"  Possess  .  .  .  .  a  staff ....  [but]  no  stick,''  which  is  precisely  what  we  find  in  Ss.  Ss 
has,  namely,  in  Matt.  10  :  10,  Luke  9  : 3,  a  different  word  from  that  used  in  Mark  6 : 8, 
viz.,  khutrd  (  "  bludgeon  "  ). —  John  4  :  25,  Ss  and  T  translate  the  regular  text  ol^a.  Sri 
Meffjlas  epx^Tai,  Srav  e\By  iKetvos,  dvayyeXei  ijfuv  Airavra  with  Ide  Mefffflas  epxerai, 
Srav  ("KOrj  iKeivos  dw(Tei  {ifp-tv  omitted  by  Ss)  HiravTa.,  a  reading  which  is  unparalleled 
by  any  other  text.  See  Zahn,  Theol.  Literatur-Blatt,  1895,  No.  25  ;  Burkitt,  /.  c, 
for  these  examples. 


PRELIM  IN  A  R  V  INVESTIGA  TIONS  1 9 

question  may  be  asked,  with  just  as  much  weight,  whether  it  would  be 
possible,  or  probable,  that  the  Syrian  Christians  should  have  done  so 
long  without  the  gospels  that  they  received  the  first  translation  not 
before  about  172  A.  D.  Again,  would  it  be  likely  that  the  translator 
of  the  four  separate  gospels  should  have  used  the  Diatessaron  as  the 
basis  of  his  translation,  should  have  untwisted  the  finely  coupled, 
sometimes  masterly  mixed,  substance,  and  then  should  have  gone  on 
with  his  translation  ?  Does  it  not  seem  much  more  natural  that  the 
compiler  of  the  harmony  used  a  Syriac  translation  of  the  separate 
gospels,  which  would  save  him  the  work  of  translating  before  he  began 
to  harmonize  ?  This  supposition  does  not  rest  on  common-sense 
only ;  positive  proof  can  be  adduced  for  it. 

Incidentally  it  should  be  said  here  that  there  is  now  practically 
unanimity  in  regard  to  the  fact  that  the  Diatessaron  of  Tatian  was 
"von  Haus  aus"  (/.  e.,  originally)  Syriac.  This  has  been  proved  espe- 
cially by  Zahn,  and  also  by  J.  Rendel  Harris.  Harnack  stands  practi- 
cally alone  in  his  contention  that  it  was  composed  in  Greek,  and  not 
in  Syriac. 

But  to  return  to  the  proof  for  the  statement  that  the  author  of  the 
harmony  based  his  work  on  a  Syriac  translation  of  the  separate  gos- 
pels which  existed  already  at  his  time.     I  quote  from  J.  Rendel  Harris  : 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  readings  of  Tatian  has  been  held  to  be  the 
expression  of  Mark  (viii.  26),  preserved  in  the  Arabic  Harmony,  where  we 
are  told  that  the  Syro-Phenician  woman,  upon  whose  daughter  the  Lord 
showed  compassion,  was  a  native  of  Emesa  (or  Horns)  of  Syria.  The  reading 
has,  at  first  sight,  every  appearance  of  being  an  addition  to  the  information 
in  the  canonical  gospels.  If  it  is  really  a  part  of  Tatian's  text,  I  can  prove, 
however,  that  he  was  working  on  Syriac  gospels.  The  proof  is  as  follows  : 
The  Persian  version,  which  was  made  from  a  Syriac  text,  says  the  woman 
was  "from  Phenice  of  Syria  —  /.  e.,  from  Horns,"  from  which  we  suspect  that 
Homs  of  Syria  in  Tatian's  text  is  merely  an  explanation  of  "  Phenice  of 
Syria."  And  this  is  confirmed  by  the  dictionary  of  Bar  Ali  and  a  number  of 
other  authorities,  who  tell  us  that  "Phenice  of  Syria  is  the  city  Homs."  If, 
then,  Tatian's  text  had  "  Homs  of  Syria,"  it  is  explanatory  of  an  earlier  text 
"  Phenice  of  Syria,"  and  this  text  must  have  been  a  translation  of  the  trouble- 
some Greek  word  "Syro-Phenician."  The  collateral  evidence  for  the  exist- 
ence of  such  a  translation  is  abundant.  Tatian  was,  therefore,  working  on 
translated  gospels.  It  appears,  therefore,  that  his  evidence  also,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  runs  back  into  a  Syriac  source.^= 

*5  J.  Rendel  Harris  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  November,  1894,  p.  671.  For 
the  other  proofs  see  Zahn's  Gesch.  d.  Kanons. 


20 


NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 


We  have  up  to  this  point  seen  ( i )  that  there  exists  an  intimate 
relationship  between  Ss  and  T,  and  (2)  that  T  has  based  his  work  on 
already  existing  Syriac  gospels.  Is  there  now  any  proof  in  the  text  of 
Ss  which  shows  that  the  text  it  represents  was  earlier  than  T  ? 

The  strongest  proof  will  certainly  be  in  a  comparison  of  pas- 
sages in  which  we  clearly  see  the  dogmatic  character  of  Tatian. 
Though,  of  course,  the  work  of  Tatian  was  made,  not  for  dogmatic  and 
theological,  but  for  practical  reasons,  we  know  from  some  writers 
that  he  held  certain  heretical  views,  which  found  expression  in  the 
omission  of  passages  which  contradicted  his  views,  and  which  he 
therefore  believed  to  be  wrong.''*  There  are  two  points  especially : 
(i)  his  rejection  of  marriage,  and  (2)  his  opposition  to  everything 
which  showed  the  Davidic  descent  of  Jesus. 

Now  let  us  compare  Matt,  i :  19-25  : 


Sc 


Ss 


Now  Joseph  her  husband 


19.  Now  Joseph, 
because  he 
was  a  just  man 

20.  Joseph,  son  of  David, 

do  not  fear  to  marry 
Mary  thy  betrothed 

21.  For  she  shall  bear 
a  son,  and  his 
name  shall  be  called 
Jesus,  for  he  shall  save  = 

the  world  from  their  sins     his  people  from  = 


omits :  man 


Mary  thy  wife 

thee  a  son 
and  thou  shalt  call 


Arab.  Diat. 

=  Ss 
=  Sc 
=  Sc 

=  Sc 

=  Ss 
=  Sc 

=  Ss 
=  Ss 

=:SS 


Ephraim 

=  Sc 
=  Sc 
=  Sc 
omits 
son  of  David 

simply  :   Mary 
missing 


25.  And  he  married  Mary 
and  lived  Purely  with  her 


Mary  his  wife    and  took  his  wife     took  her 


until  she  bare  the  son 

and  she  called 
his  name  Jesus 


and  knew  her  not       =  Sc 

until  she  until  she 

and  she  bare  hitn  a  son     bare  her  bare  her 

firstborn  son  firstborn 

and  he  called  


Now,  suppose  T  were  the  oldest  and  Ss  were  based  on  it,  what  rea- 
son should  Ss  have  to  alter  the  text  of  T  so  much  that  he  has  quite  a 
unique  text  ?  There  is  no  dogmatic  presupposition  found  in  his 
translation,  and  everyone  who  reads  this  narrative  about  the  birth  of 
Christ  is  struck  by  the  simplicity  and  naturalness  of  Ss,  which  comes 
out  perhaps  most  strongly  in  vs.  16,  omitted  by  T  : 

*^  Cf.  especially  Eusebius,  IV,  29,  and  Theodoret,  I,  20. 


PRELIM  IN  A  RY  IN  VES  TIG  A  TIONS  2 1 

Jacob  begat  Joseph  ;  Joseph,  to  whom  was  betrothed  Mary  the  virgin, 
begat  Jesus,  who  is  called  Christ. 

The  idea  that  this  is  the  work  of  a  heretic  must  at  once  be  dis- 
missed, since  it  has  no  foundation  in  the  whole  translation,  which  is 
entirely  without  theological  bias.  The  text  of  Ss  draws  really  the  cor- 
rect conclusion  from  that  genealogy.  On  the  other  hand,  we  know 
that  Tatian  had  dogmatic  presuppositions.  He  never  mentions  Mary 
and  Joseph  as  husband  and  wife.  He  emphasizes  the  fact  that  they 
lived  purely  with  each  other.  He  omits  the  genealogies  altogether, 
because  they  showed  the  Davidic  descent  of  Christ.  Now,  in  the  text 
of  Ss  we  have  — 

I.  The  emphasis  on  the  married  relationship  of  Mary  and  Joseph. 


Ss 

Sc 

T 

Joseph  her  husband 

omits:  her  husband 

=Sc 

Mary  thy  wije 

thy  bethrothed 

omits 

married  his  wife 

omits :  his  wife 

=  Sc 

she  shall  bear  thee  a 

son 

omits  :  thee 

thou  shalt  call  his  name 

his  name  shall  be  called 

he  called  his  name 

she  called  his  name 

adds  :    lived  purely  with 
her 

he  dwelt  with  her  in 

purity 

2.  The  Davidic  descent  of  Jesus. 

In  the  genealogies,  in  the  sentence,  "Joseph  begat  Jesus,"  "Joseph 
was  called  the  father  of  Jesus,"  and  especially  in  vs.  20,  "Joseph,  son 
of  David,  do  not  fear." 

While  we  can  find  no  ground  why  Ss  should  have  altered  Tatian's 
text  into  his  really  unique  and  unparalleled  text,  there  are  strong  rea- 
sons for  supposing  that  Tatian  found  this  text  of  Ss  and  modified  it 
to  suit  his  views. 

An  objection  which  might  be  made  to  the  second  argument,  as 
to  the  Davidic  descent  of  Jesus,  must  be  considered  here.  Ephraim 
says  in  his  commentary  on  the  Diatessaron :  "  Eadem  scriptura 
dixit,  utrumque  Josephum  et  Mariam  esse  ex  domo  David."  (Moesin- 
ger,  Evgl.  Concord.  Expos.,  p.  26.)  This  seems  to  contradict  the 
statement  that  Tatian  omitted  everything  which  related  to  the  Davidic 
descent  of  Jesus.  But  one  must  not  be  rash  in  such  a  conclusion. 
Ephraim  uses  the  separate  gospel  text,  too  ;  all  the  citations  in  his  com- 
mentary cannot  be  regarded  as  belonging  to  the  Diatessaron,  and  it  is 
conceded  that  many  are  from  the  separate  gospels.  I  would  therefore 
rather  trust  the  eyewitness  Theodoret,  who  had  seen  copies  of  the  Syriac 


22  NEiV  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

work,  as  we  have  not.  Thus  I  believe  that  these  words  were  not  in 
the  original  Diatessaron,  but  were  taken  from  the  separate  gospels. 
That  this  is  correct  is  shown  by  the  text  of  Ss  in  Luke  2  :  4,  "because 
both  were  from  the  house  of  David;"  while  P  and  W-H  have:  8ta 
TO  eivat  avTov  €$  oikov  kol  Trarpta?  AavetS. 

The  second  argument  is,  therefore,  valid,  and  it  must  be  recognized, 
though  the  first  argument  alone  would  be  sufficient  for  our  purpose. 

Again,  there  are  peculiarities  in  Ss  which  cannot  be  later  than  T."' 

Another  argument  for  the  priority  of  the  separate  gospels  over 
against  the  harmony  lies  in  the  omissions  of  Ss,  especially  of  Mark 
16:9-20,  the  so- called  "longer  conclusion."  Ss  omits  it,  breaking 
suddenly  off  with:  "for  they  were  afraid."  Then  we  have  the  colo- 
phon, "Here  endeth  the  gospel  of  Mark,"  and  then  begins  at  once  in 
the  same  column,  showing  that  nothing  has  been  omitted,  the  gospel 
of  Luke.  Ss  did  not  have  vss.  9-16  just  as  J^,  B.  But  everybody 
recognizes  that  these  verses  were  in  the  original  Diatessaron.  Sc  has 
them,  too.  If  Ss  had  T  before  him,  why,  then,  did  he  leave  out  these 
verses  ?  No  reason  whatever  can  be  found  for  the  omission  but  the 
one  that  Ss  did  not  find  these  verses  in  the  original  from  which  he 
made  his  translation.  And  it  is  evident,  therefore,  that  this  original 
was  not  T,  for  in  T  these  verses  are  found. 

But  that  is  not  claimed  at  all,  one  might  say.  Evidently  Ss  had 
not  only  T,  but  also  a  Greek  MS.  before  him.  He  followed  the  Greek 
MS. ;  thus  this  omission  is  no  reason  why  Ss  should  be  earlier  than  T. 

This  is  a  natural  objection.  However,  it  will  be  noticed  that  the 
omission  of  those  verses  occurs  in  the  earliest  Greek  MS.,  while  only 
the   later  Greek    texts  have   the  passage.      The   same  applies  to   the 

'7"  There  is  at  least  one  passage  where  we  know  the  Diatessaron  to  have  contained 
a  peculiar  interpretation  of  the  ordinary  Greek  text,  but  where  Sinaiticus  has  a  striking 
mistranslation  (or  a  corruption  of  the  underlying  Greek  text),  which  could  hardly  have 
passed  into  circulation  after  the  Diatessaron  reading  was  current ;  i.  e.,  Luke  4  :  29, 
w(rT£  KttTtt  Kprjuviffai  avrov,  which  was  taken  by  Tatian  to  imply  that  the  men  of  Naza- 
reth actually  threw  our  Lord  over  the  cliff.  But  in  Sin.  we  read  :  'And  they  led  him 
out  as  far  as  the  top  (?)  of  the  mountain  upon  which  their  city  was  built,  so  as  to  hang 
him.'  The  last  clause  is  evidently  meant  for  were  Kpefxaa-ai  avrov.  Such  a  gross  mis- 
translation must  date  from  very  early  times."  (Burkitt.)  Besides,  readings  like 
Matt.  27  :  16,  17,  where  Ss  has  '^/esus  Bar-Abbas,"  which  is  also  in  S*^'";  Luke  2  :  36, 
which  affirms  that  Hanna  had  lived  only  seven  days  with  her  husband  before  she 
became  a  widow ;  Luke  4  :  29,  "  He  who  eats  the  Apurrov  in  the  kingdom  of  God,"  must 
be  very  old,  and  are  of  such  a  character  that  "niemand  (sic)  spater  in  ein  Neucs 
Testament  hineincorrigiert  haben  wUrde."  {C/.  Nestle,  Theolog.  Literatur-Zeituns, 
I.  c.) 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGA  TIONS  23 

omission  of  other  passages  in  Ss  which  are  in  T,  e.  g.,  Luke  22:  43,  44  ; 
23  :  34^.     It  is  only  the  earliest  MSS.  which  omit  them. 

The  case  lies,  then,  ilms :     Ss  used  an  older  Greek   MS.  than  T. 
Is  this  natural  in  the  case  that  Ss  is  later  than  T  ?     Evidently  not. 

Besides,  it  is  a  great  question  whether  a  later  author  would  omit 
such  passages  as,  e.  g.,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do,"  a  passage  which  must  have  immediately  taken  hold  of  the 
hearts  of  the  people  when  once  given.  Now,  would  an  author  who 
began  his  work  when  this  word  of  Jesus  on  the  cross  was  already 
familiar  to  the  people  from  the  harmony  which  they  used,  omit  it,  even 
though  it  were  not  in  the  Greek  MS.  from  which  he  translated  ?  Would 
not  the  people  charge  him  at  once  with  having  omitted  some  of  the 
most  precious  parts  of  the  gospel  ?  Would  for  those  simple-minded, 
earnest,  practical  Christians  an  answer  be  sufficient  which  told  them  : 
these  are  really  not  original  parts  of  the  gospel,  they  are  later  addi- 
tions? That  might  do  for  a  modern  critic.  But  one  may  safely  chal- 
lenge anyone  to  try  today  whether  the  great  mass  of  earnest,  devoted 
Christians  would  be  willing  to  give  up  those  texts  simply  because  they 
are  not  found  in  the  earliest  MSS.  And  then,  the  whole  character  of 
the  work  of  Ss  shows  that  the  author's  purpose  was  practical :  he 
wanted  to  give  the  people  a  gospel  which  they  could  read  and  under- 
stand ;  there  were  none  of  the  elements  of  the  modern  text  critic  in 
him.  His  work  was  for  the  people.  But  will  the  people  be  willing  to 
accept  his  work  when  they  could  say:  " Our  old  gospel,  our  Diates- 
saron,  is  much  better  than  this  new  version.  It  has  those  words  which 
we  love,  but  this  version  has  omitted  them  "  ?  Impossible  that  he  should 
not  have  thought  of  this.  No ;  the  omission  of  those  passages  in  Ss 
shows  very  clearly  that  he  did  not  have  T  before  him  ;  that  T  must  be 
later;  else  they  would  have  been  taken  account  of,  no  matter  whether 
the  Greek  MS.  of  Ss  had  them  or  not. 

These  arguments  from  the  comparison  of  dogmatic  passages  in 
T  and  Ss,  from  the  peculiarities  of  Ss,  which  would  scarcely  have  found 
their  place  after  T's  work,  and  from  the  omissions  of  Ss,  are  perhaps 
as  strong  arguments  as  we  can  expect  in  the  absence  of  external  wit- 
ness. It  is  their  inherent  force  which  convinces  us  that  the  text  repre- 
sented by  Ss,  the  Syr.  vet.,  is  older  than  the  Diatessaron,  and  that  the 
relation  that  exists  between  them  is  the  dependence  of  T  on  Ss. 

There  is,  however,  also  a  clear  influence  of  T  on  Ss.  And  this 
fact  —  I  refer  to  the  presence  of  harmonistic  readings  in  Ss  —  is  the 
main,  if  not  the  only  real,  argument  for  the  opposite  view,  which  affirms 
the  priority  of  T  over  against  Ss. 


24  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

That  there  are  such  harmonistic  readings  in  Ss  is  plain  from  such 
passages  as  Mark  8:32;  7  :  28,  and  others.'^ 

It  is  not  necessary  for  our  argument  to  point  out  the  harmonistic 
readings  in  Sc.  They  were  already  recognized  by  Cureton,  who  in  his 
preface,  p.  Ixvi,  says  : 

If  we  turn  to  St.  Luke,  we  find  several  examples  of  additions  made  to  the  text 
from  the  other  evangelists,  who  had  related  some  fact  or  discourse  in  greater 
detail,  or  with  some  additional  circumstances  ;  of  the  change  of  words  or 
phrases  to  accommodate  them  and  bring  them  nearer,  or  even  to  make  them 
identical  with  the  terms  employed  in  other  gospels.  The  gospel  of  St.  John, 
from  its  peculiarity  in  having  less  in  common  than  the  other  three,  will  neces- 
sarily admit  of  fewer  changes  of  this  sort ;  but  still,  even  in  that  small  portion 
of  it  which  remains,  indications  of  this  kind  are  observable.  Of  Mark  only 
four  verses  of  the  last  chapter  remain.  The  gospel  of  St.  Matthew  also  seems 
to  exhibit  some  signs  of  a  similar  nature,  especially  with  regard  to  additions 
made  to  the  text. 

According  to  his  theory  that  this  Syriac  gospel  of  Matthew  repre- 
sents "more  nearly  the  exact  words  which  the  evangelist  himself  made 
use  of  than  any  other  that  has  hitherto  been  discovered,"  Cureton 
attributes  "  its  approximation  in  numerous  places  to  the  reading  found 
in  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  "  to  this  cause,  and  not  to  the  same  to  which 
he  ascribes  the  harmonistic  readings  in  Mark,  Luke,  and  John. 

After  Cureton,  Baethgen  especially  has  called  attention  to  these 
harmonistic  readings,  and  has  made  much  use  of  them  for  his  argument 

"*  Mark  8  :  32,  where  Ss  has  :  "  And  Simon  Peter,  as  though  pitying  him,  said, 
'  Be  this  far  from  thee.' "  This  is  evidently  a  conflation  of  Mark  and  Matt.  The 
Greek  has  in  Matt.  :  kixi.  wpoaXa^ofievos  avrov  o  Jlerpos  rjp^aTo  eiTLTLp.av  avrif  Xeyuv 
iXews  (Tot  Kvpie  ov  p.t}  effrai  tovto.  In  Mark  :  /cat  wpoffXa^onevos  o  Ylerpos  avrov  ijpfaro 
eTriTi/xav  avru.  The  phrase  in  Ss,  "  as  though  pitying  him,"  is  plainly  a  translation 
of  the  Greek  words  iXews  <roi  of  Matt.  Now,  exactly  the  same  phrase  occurs  in  the 
Arabic  Diatessaron,  which  translates:  "And  Simon  Peter,  as  if  sympathizing  with 
him,  said,  '  Be  this  far  from  thee,  Lord.' "  Now,  it  is  true  that  a  b  n  combine  also 
Matt,  and  Mark,  but  the  agreement  is  not  so  close  as  in  the  case  of  Ss  and  T. — 
Matt.  7  :  28,  Ss  reads  :  *cai  to  Kvvapia  effOiei  airo  rwv  ^pix^uv  ruv  wnrrovrtav  airo  rifj 
TpoirefTjj  (or  airo  rwv  rpaire^oiv)  rwv  iraidiwv.  The  Greek  has  in  Matt,  ra  Kvvapia  eaOiet, 
airo  rwv  \pi.xi-wv  rwv  irnrrovrwv  airo  rrji  rpaire^rjs  rwv  Kvpiwv  ;  in  Mark  :  ra  Kvvapia  viro 
Karw  Tijs  rpaire^-qs  fcrdiovffiv  airo  rwv  ipixiwv  rwv  waidiwv.  Ss  omits  in  Matt,  airo  rwv 
xj/iXi-wv  rwv  irnrrovrwv,  but  reads  it  in  Mark,  where  it  is  not  in  the  Greek.  Ephraim's 
Diatessaron  has :  "  Even  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs  of  their  master's  table"  =  Greek  of 
Mark.  Ss  takes  the  airo  rwv  \f/ixi-wv  rwv  iriirrovrwv  from  Matt.,  but  it  retains  the 
reading  rwv  iraiSiwv.  — -  For  other  instances  see  Zahn's  article  in  the  Theologische 
Literatur-Blatt,  1895,  and  the  transpositions  in  the  passion  story,  Luke  22  :  16,  19, 
20a,  17,  20b,  18,  21  ;  John  i8  :  13,  24,  14,  15,  19-23,  16-18,  25,  which  seem  to  point 
to  a  harmony. 


PRELIM  IN  A  RY  IN  VES  TIG  A  TIONS  2  5 

of  the  priority  of  the  Diatessaron.  But  as  to  this,  it  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  quote  the  words  of  Burkitt  in  the  Guardian,  October  31,  1894  : 
Baethgen  brings  forward  a  number  of  instances  of  harmonistic  readings 
of  Cur.,  but  out  of  his  forty-three  examples  where  Cur.  stands  alone  (or 
with  Diat.  only),  sixteen,  or  more  than  one-third,  are  not  shared  by  Sin.  .  .  . 
Matt.  21  :  33-44  is  selected  by  Baethgen  to  exhibit  the  harmonistic  tendencies 
of  Syr.  vet.,  and  of  five  such  readings  in  these  verses  peculiar  to  Cur.  alone, 
three  are  also  found  in  Sin.  Yet  even  here  Sin.  shows  its  independence  by 
passing  over  vs.  44  altogether,  while  Cur.  and  Pesb.  follow  the  ordinary  text. 
The  verse  is  in  Diat.,  where  it  may,  of  course,  correspond  to  Luke  20  :  18. 
Its  absence  from  Sin.  in  the  midst  of  so  many  minor  harmonistic  readings 
shows  that  no  deliberate  attempt  at  assimilating  the  gospels  one  to  the  other 
has  been  made,  however  much  the  scribes  of  Sin.  and  its  ancestors  may  have 
been  influenced  by  the  wording  of  parallel  verses. 

How  do  we  have  to  account  for  the  harmonistic  readings  in  Ss  ?  It 
is  easily  said  :  They  are  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Diatessaron.  There  is 
probably  nobody  who  denies  it.  But  suppose  the  Old  Syriac  text  of 
the  separate  gospels  were  later  than  the  Diatessaron,  how  have  we  to 
think  of  the  work  of  its  author  ?  He  must  have  had  a  Greek  MS.  in 
his  hand  —  how  else  could  he  disentangle  the  harmony  and  restore  the 
text  of  the  separate  gospels?  He  had,  then,  before  him  the  Syriac  har- 
mony and  the  Greek  MS.  Which  would  be  the  text  that  he  preferred  ? 
Would  he  simply  look  for  the  corresponding  translation  of  the  Greek 
in  the  Syriac  Diatessaron  ?  Would  he  omit  the  passages  which  the 
Diatessaron  had,  indeed,  but  which  were  not  in  the  Greek  MS.  P  Would 
he  add  some  additions  which  the  Greek  text  had,  but  which  were  want- 
ing in  the  Diatessaron  ?  Would  he,  in  the  main,  take  the  text  from  the 
already  existing  Syriac  translation,  disentangling  most  passages,  but  not 
all,  so  that  some  harmonistic  touches  would  remain  ?  Whatever  may 
be  said  about  this  theory,  it  is  absolutely  improbable.  For  this  pro- 
cedure he  must  have  known  a  good  deal  of  Greek.  Why  should  he 
then  undergo  this  mechanical,  slavish  task,  which,  moreover,  was  more 
difficult  than  the  direct  translation  ?  No,  the  whole  translation  bears 
the  stamp  of  originality  on  its  face  ;  such  kind  of  a  work  would  have 
left  other  traces  which  this  noble  and  forcible  piece  does  not  show. 

But  then,  one  objects  and  asks,  wondering  how  afiyone  can  set  up 
a  theory  like  this,  whether  it  was  not  simply  so  that  the  author  did  not 
have  a  copy  of  Tatian's  work,  but  merely  a  Greek  MS.,  before  him  ;  that 
he  was,  however,  so  familiar  with  the  text  of  the  harmony  that  there 
slipped  into  his  translation  some  harmonistic  reminiscences  of  the 
Diatessaron. 


26  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

But,  after  all,  the  question  arises :  If  he  had  the  Greek  text 
before  him,  why  should  he  make  these  strange  excursions  ?  We  have 
no  reason  to  doubt  —  on  the  contrary,  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  — 
that  he  was  a  very  faithful  translator.  Here  is  a  man  who  wants  to 
give  the  Syrian  Christians,  who  have  the  Diatessaron  already,  the  sepa- 
rate gospels  as  they  were  used  in  the  Grseco-Roman  church.  Will  he 
not  be  careful  to  shun  harmonistic  passages,  lest  he  defeat  his  own  end  ? 
Besides,  the  danger  of  falling  into  these  lapses  is  not  so  great  as  one 
might  at  first  think.  The  work  which  the  translator  had  to  do  was  not 
altogether  mechanical ;  it  was  not  the  wearisome  toil  of  simple  copying ; 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  creative  work  to  be  done.  The  mind  was 
profoundly  attentive  ;  this  his  whole  work  shows.  It  was  something 
new  that  he  wanted  to  give  to  the  people.  Since  the  main  stock  was 
already  there  in  the  harmony,  his  diligence  must  be  only  the  greater, 
lest  he  represent  the  Greek  original  incorrectly. 

The  copyist  who  had  the  mechanical  work  to  do  was  more  likely  to 
write  down  from  memory.  One  who  knows  what  it  is  to  copy  hour 
after  hour,  perhaps  day  after  day,  knows  how  the  attention  becomes 
distracted  and  the  mind  grows  weary.  Familiar  as  the  scribe  of  the 
third  or  fourth  century  was  with  the  substance  of  what  he  was  copying, 
and  knowing  the  text  of  the  Diatessaron  well,  he  must  at  times  have 
put  down  the  text  of  the  harmony  which  was  so  familiar  to  him,  espe- 
cially in  passages  where  there  was  agreement  in  general.  It  is  much 
easier  to  think  that  the  harmonistic  elements  came  into  Ss  through 
scribes  than  that  they  were  due  to  the  original  translator,  unless  it  could 
be  proved  that  the  Greek  text  from  which  he  translated  contained  these 
harmonistic  touches  already.  Considerations  like  these  weaken  or 
destroy  the  argument  for  the  priority  of  the  harmony  over  against  Ss. 

And  then,  even  those  harmonistic  touches  which  we  find  in  Ss  must 
not  all  be  attributed  to  the  influence  of  T.  This  will  be  seen,  for  instance 
in  the  passage  Mark  7  :  28,^'  where  there  is,  indeed,  a  conflation  in  Ss,  but 
it  is  found  neither  in  the  Ephraim  fragments  nor  in  the  Arabic  Diates- 
saron. The  influence  of  a  parallel  passage  explains  much,  and  prob- 
ably some  conflations  he  found  already  in  the  Greek  MS.^" 

''See  preceding  footnote. 

3» Compare  for  this  the  words  of  Jerome  in  his  preface  to  the  gospels,  also  cited  by 
Cureton  :  "  Magnus  si  quidem  hie  in  nostris  codicibus  error  inolevit,  dum  quod  in  eadem 
re  alius  Evangelista  plus  dixit,  in  alio  quia  minus  putaverint,  addiderunt.  Vel  dum 
eundem  sensum  alius  aliter  expressit,  ille  qui  unum  a  quattuor  primum  legerat,  ad  ejus 
exemplum  ceteros  quoque  existimaverit  emendandos.  Unde  accidit  ut  apud  nos 
mixta  sunt  omnia,  et  in  Marco  plura  Lucae  atque  Matthaei,  rursus  in  Matthaeo  plura 
Johannis  et  Marci,  et  in  ceteris  reliquorum,  quae  aliis  propria  sunt,  inveniantur." 


f    UNIVERSITY   3 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGA  TIONS  2 ^ 

The  result,  then,  of  our  investigation  as  to  the  relative  age  of  Ss 
and  T  is  that  Ss  is  earlier  than  T,  that  T  was  not  the  earliest  gospel 
which  the  Syrians  knew. 

Now,  what  is  the  relation  in  which  T  stands  to  Sc  ?  We  have  seen 
that  the  text  which  is  represented  by  Ss  is  earlier  than  T.  But  how  about 
Sc  ?  Is  it  also  earlier,  or  is  it  later  ?  I  think  it  is  clearly  later.  The 
arguments  which  have  been  brought  forward  for  the  priority  of  Ss  can- 
not be  applied  to  Sc.  Sc  is  so  much  like  T  in  the  dogmatic  portions 
that  no  other  conclusion  seems  possible  than  that  it  is  based  on  T.  It 
contains,  moreover,  the  conclusion  of  Mark,  as  well  as  the  most  impor- 
tant other  omissions,  like  Luke  22  143,  44,  just  as  T.  Sc  apparently 
presupposes  T  in  its  translation.  Ss  would,  then,  be  the  oldest,  T 
would  come  next,  and  Sc  would  come  after  T.  This  carries  naturally 
with  it  the  position  of  P,  which  is  the  latest  of  them  all. 

Suppose,  however,  for  a  moment  that  the  Diatessaron  (  =  T)  were 
the  earliest  form  after  all.  Then  one  thing  would  inevitably  follow  : 
Sc  must  be  nearer  in  time  to  T  than  Ss,  because  Sc  has  undoubted  marks 
of  T's  influence,  much  more  so  than  S^  {cf.  especially  Matt.,  chap.  i). 
But  this  would  contradict  the  result  of  our  investigation,  for  we  saw 
that  Ss  was  older  than  Sc,  and  had  strong  proofs  for  it.  With  this  the  last 
foundation  of  Tatian's  priority  vanishes.  The  Diatessaron  cannot  claim 
the  distinction  of  having  been  the  first  written  message  of  the  gospel 
of  Christ  in  Syria. 

The  Syrians  had,  then,  the  separate  gospels  in  a  text  which  under- 
lies Ss  before  they  had  the  Diatessaron.  Now  it  will  be  asked  :  If  they 
had  already  Ss,  what  was  the  need  of  having  another  translation,  that 
of  Sc  ?  Was  Ss  not  enough  ?  Here  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  prob- 
ably for  the  great  mass  of  the  people  the  Diatessaron  was  the  only  form 
in  which  they  knew  the  gospels.  For  the  Diatessaron  was  made  at  the 
time  when  Christianity,  from  being  the  religion  of  individuals,  became 
the  religion  of  the  state.  To  those  Christians  the  Diatessaron  was  their 
one  and  all.  They  heard  it  in  the  church  services,  and  became  soon 
acquainted  with  it.  Naturally  they  were  familiar  with  Tatian's  idea  of 
the  birth  of  Christ.  Hearing  now  from  others  that  the  gospels  were 
originally  written  in  four  separate  accounts,  they  would  be  eager  to 
possess  them  also  in  that  form  in  which,  as  they  learned,  the  rest  of  the 
Christian  churches  read  them.  The  desideratum  of  the  hour  was,  then, 
for  these  people,  not  a  work  which  contradicted  the  Diatessaron,  but  one 
which  was  in  harmony  with  it,  told  the  narration  of  the  birth  in  the 
same  words  almost  as  T.     A  work  like  Ss  would  hardly  have  met  their 


28  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

wishes.  To  this  desire  the  translation  of  Sc  was  due.  When  it  was 
made  we  do  not  know.  Perhaps  quite  early,  about  200  A.  D.,  perhaps 
some  fifty  years  later.  How  widely  it  was  used  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
The  same  must  also  be  said  about  the  use  of  Ss ;  whether  it  was  used 
extensively  or  only  in  small  circles  is  uncertain.  That  both  were  made 
to  fulfil  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  people  cannot  be  doubted.  For 
practical,  not  for  critical,  purposes  did  the  authors  write  ;  that  people 
should  read  and  be  edified,  not  that  scholars  should  examine  and  com- 
pare and  inquire  which  was  the  correct  text  and  which  not. 


Unless  other  finds  show  the  contrary,  Ss  in  its  original  form  was  the 
first  translation  to  which  we  can  point  with  historic  certainty.  The  extra- 
ordinary value  of  Ss  for  text-critical  purposes  has  at  once  been  recog- 
nized.^' It  seems  to  stand  on  the  same  level  of  authority  as  5<  and  B. 
Merx  places  it  even  higher. ^^  Whether  that,  however,  can  be  main- 
tained, time  will  show.  But  the  fact  that  Ss  was  written  before  T,  puts 
it  into  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  to  which  the  entire  text  bears 
witness  ;  and  that  places  it  in  the  front  rank  of  the  witnesses  for  the 
original  Greek  text  of  the  gospels. 

4.      The   Gospel  in  Aphraates. 

(i)  The  first  thing  which  confirms  the  historical  presumption  that 
Aphraates  used  the  Uiatessaron  is  the  fact  that  he  calls  the  book  from 
which  he  quotes  at  least  five  times  simply  "the  gospel,"  "his  gospel," 
"the  gospel  of  our  vivifier;"^^  never  speaking  of  it  as  "the  gospels," 

3'  Ss  is  used  already  by  Blass  in  his  edition  of  Luke  (Leipzig,  1897)  and  by  Baljon 
in  his  Novum  Testamentum  Graece  (Groningen,  1898),  who  says:  "Maioris  momenti 
est  codex  Syr*'°;  eius  igitur  lectiones  diligentissime  conquisitas  in  annotatione 
ubique  (?!)  adscripsi  "  (p.  iv). 

3^  Cf.  his  extremely  interesting  appendix.  He  would  sometimes  take  the  reading 
of  Ss,  even  if  the  entire  other  tradition  be  different.  Blass  also  ranks  it  very  high.  So 
would  he,  just  like  Merx  (and  Bechtel)|  "dem  Syrer  der  Mrs.  Lewis  glauben,  dass 
es  Luc.  17:10  SoOXot  ^o'yuej'  heissen  muss,  ohne  a.xp^'ioi..''  {Gram.  d.  neutestamentl.  Griech., 
p.  V.)  "At  est  profecto  ubi  magna  habenda  sit  vel  soli  vel  paucis  testanti :  velut  quod 
omittit  L.  17:10  axpeioi  e  Matthaeo  in  sententiae  detrimentum  invectum,  et  Johannis 
narrationem  (18:13  sqq.)  cum  graeco  225  in  veriorem  ordinem  redigit,  ut  desinat  non 
modo  cum  ceterorum  sed  etiam  secum  ipse  pugnare  videri."  (  Luke,  Pref.,  p.  Ixxvi). 
See  also  footnote  28. 

33  P.  8,  "As  it  is  written  in  the  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  our  vivifier ;"  p.  13, 
"The  word  which  is  written  in  the  gospel;"  p.  321,  "as  was  said  in  the  gospel;" 
P-  235,  "  as  he  says  in  his  gospel ;"  "  what  the  Lord  teaches  in  his  gospel  "  (Bert's 
edition). 


PRELIM  IN  A  RY  IN  VES  TIG  A  TIONS  29 

nor  ever  mentioning  the  name  of  a  single  evangelist.  (2)  There  are 
harmonistic  passages  in  his  homilies  which  point  in  the  same  direction. 
It  is  true  we  cannot  control  them  all,  since  in  many  cases  Ephraim  is 
wanting  and  the  Arabic  has  no  mixture.**  He  might,  then,  have  harmon- 
ized himself.  But  there  are  enough  cases  where  he  has  the  same  mix- 
ture as  the  Arabic  or  Ephraim,  and  also  where  he  strings  his  quotations 
together  so  as  to  follow  closely  the  order  of  the  Diatessaron.  They 
have  been  discussed  by  Zahn  and  Harris.  (3)  There  is  at  least  one 
passage,  Luke  16:28,  where  Aphraates  and  the  Arabic  T  have  an 
unparalleled  reading,  caused  by  a  primitive  error  in  the  Greek  text, 
oTTws  Sta/xaprv/oT^Tat  fused  with  SiafiapTavo)  (Harris,  p.  21).  (4)  Aphraa- 
tes says  that  his  gospel  began,  just  as  the  Diatessaron,  with  John  1:1: 
"In  the  beginning  was  the  word."  "As  it  is  written  tn  the  beginning 
of  the  gospel  of  our  vivifier  :  '  In  the  beginning  was  the  word.'  "  Not 
in  the  beginning  of  John's  gospel  —  he  never  says  that;  but  "in  the 
beginning  of  the  gospel  of  our  vivifier."  (5)  Add  to  these  the  fact 
that  there  was  no  other  harmony  that  he  could  have  used  ;  that  of 
Ammonius  being  different  and  not  used,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  Syria, 
while  Tatian's  Diatessaron  was  used;  and  (6)  the  fact  that  there  are 
some  quotations  which  can  best  be  explained  on  the  assumption  that 
they  were  taken  from  Tatian's  Diatessaron  ;  ^^  ^nd  there  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  about  Aphraates'  use  of  the  Diatessaron. 

3^^.  ^.,  Matt.  5:  15  ;  Mark  4:21;  Luke  8:  16;  John  20  :  2,  13;  Matt.  28  :  6  ; 
Luke  I?  :  3,  4  ;  Matt.  18:15  ff.;  etc. 

35  Matt.  5:4,  "  Blessed  are  they  who  mourn,  for  they  shall  be  supplicated ;'''  wapaKa- 
Xetf  is  translated  "supplicate."  Luke  6  :  24,  "  Woe  unto  you  rich,  who  have  received 
your  petition,"  wapdKXrjan ;  16:25,  "But  now  thou  askest  and  he  does  not  help 
thee;"  Ss,  P^"And  now  he  receives  rest  and  thou  art  tortured;"  Sc  wanting. 
Matt.  5  :  5,  "Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the  /and  of  lifey  John  i  :  17, 
"  The  truth  of  the  law  has  come  through  Jesus."  Matt.  15  :  19,  "/«  the  heart  are  the 
wicked  thoughts."  Luke  4  :  29,  ware.  KaTaKprjuvia-ai  airriv,  evidently  taken  to  imply 
that  the  Nazareth  people  actually  threw  Jesus  over  the  cliff. 

Here  belong  also  some  logiaof  Jesus  which  we  find  neither  in  the  separate  gospels 
nor  in  the  Diatessaron  as  we  have  it  in  Ephraim  and  in  the  Arabic  text.  Did 
Aphraates  have  also  apocryphal  gospels  in  addition  to  the  canonical  ?  The  passages 
are  : 

1.  "What  I  say  to  you  in  darkness,  say  ye  in  light,  for  among  the  heathen  let 
your  light  shine"  (p.  9).  The  first  sentence  is  a  quotation  from  Matt.  10:27,  and  "  for 
among  the  heathen  let  your  light  shine"  is  similar  to  Matt.  5  :  16,  "  let  your  light  so 
shine  before  men."     It  is,  then,  a  free  quotation,  not  a  new  logion. 

2.  "  Doubt  not  that  ye  may  not  sink  down  in  the  world  as  Simon,  when  he 
doubted  and  began  to  sink  down  in  the  sea"  (p.  15,  Bert's  edition).  Of  this  Resch 
says  in  his  Agrapha  (Texte  und  Untersuchungen,  Vol.  V,  4,  p.  380)  :  "  Der  durchaus 


30  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

But  there  are  indications  that  he  used  also  the  separate  gospels. 
I.    He  has  genealogies  of  Jesus  which  were  not  in  the  Diatessaron. 
A  comparison  of  the  genealogies  in  Aphraates  (=A)  with  those  of  Ss, 

secundare  Zusatz:  wie Simon,  da  er  anfing  zti  sinken  itn  Metre,  lasstes  auch  wahrschein- 
lich  werden,  dass  die  vorhergegangenen  Worte :  auf  dass  ihr  nicht  versinket  in  der 
Welt,  ebenfalls  der  Perikope  Mt.  14:28-31  nachgebildet,  mithin  nicht  original 
sind,  zumal  da  diese  Perikope  von  dem  versinkenden  Petrus  weder  durch  das  petri- 
nische  Markusevangelium,  Mc.  6:45-51,  noch  durch  die  johanneische  Parallele, 
Joh.  6 :  17-21,  gedeckt  wird.  Als  zweifellos  echt  bleibt  im  obigen  Logion  mithin  nur  der 
Anfang :  Zweifelt  nicht!  Diese  Worte  sind  aber  auch  schon  in  den  canonischen 
Evangelien  vorhanden:  /ut;  diaKpiOrjre,  Mt.  21  :2i  [which  he  has  cited  a  little  later]. 
Am  meisten  klingt  noch  an  den  Aphraatestext  Jac.  i  :  16." 

3.  "  As  it  is  written  :  The  supplicant  who  offers  his  prayer  must  first  examine  his 
gift  well,  if  a  stain  be  found  on  it,  and  then  shall  he  offer  it,  that  his  sacrifice  may  not 
remain  on  the  earth"  (Bert,  p.  66).  "  Es  ist  doch  wohl  nur  eine  Nachbildung  von  Mt. 
5 :  23,  24,  die  wir  hier  vor  uns  haben.  Man  vergleiche  namentlich  das  dreimalige 
Supov  = '  Gabe '  in  der  kanonischen  Parallele  und  die  Ubereinstimmung  in  den 
Worten  /cat  rare  eKOuv  7rpo(T(pepe  to  Suypov  <rov."     (Resch,  /.  c,  p.  442.) 

4.  "  As  it  is  written:  Our  Lord  said:  Pray  and  do  not  become  weary"  (Bert,  p.  66); 
Resch  says :  "  Dieses  Logion  findet  sich  als  Herrenwort  nirgends  im  Canon.  Wohl  aber 
bietet  Lucas  einen  verwandten  Text :  eXe7ej'  5e  irapa^oXrjv  avrocs  rrpos  to  deiv  iravTOTt 
irpoffevxeffdcLL  kui.  p-rj  eyKaKeiv,  Lc.  18  :  i.  Von  mancher  Seite  ist  diese  lucanische 
Bemerkung  als  ein  von  dem  Evangelisten  ex  suis  hinzugethaner  iiberflussiger  Zusatz 
bezeichnet  und  der  Ursprung  dieses  lucanischen  Zusatzes  in  den  paulinischen  Aus- 
driicken  gesucht  worden  :  pltj  eyKaKi]iTaTe,  2.  Thess.  3:13;  M'?  eyKaKup.€v,  Gal.  6:9;  dio 
aiTovfmi  p.r]  eyKaKeiv,  Eph.  3:13;  ovk  eyKaKovp.ev,  2.  Cor.  4:1,  16.  Durch  das  oben 
angefiihrte  Herrenwort  wird  der  Sachverhalt  gerade  ins  Gegentheil  verkehrt.  Die  pauli- 
nischen Parallelen  sind  Nachklange  von  diesem  Herrenwort,  und  Lucas  hat  ebendas- 
selbe  Herrenwort  irpo<revxfO'0e  Kai  p.r)  eyKaKrjffare  lediglich  aus  der  direkten  in  die 
indirekte  Rede  umgewandelt.  indem  er  zugleich  den  urspriinglichen  Standort  jenes 
Logion  in  der  vorcanonischen  Quelle  deutlich  erkennen  lasst.  Zu  vergleichen  ist  auch 
Herm.  Mand.,  IX,  8,  p.  104:  11,  crv  ouy  p.r}  SiaXiirrjs  aiTovp.evos  to  aiTT)p,a  ttjs  ^vxV^  <''<"', 
/cat  \r)\f/ri  avro,  eai'  5e  iKKUK-^a-QS  /cat  SLipvxW)^  aiTovp.evos,  aeavrov  aiTiw  /cat  firj  tov 
dtdovTa  ffoi.  Ubrigens  schwanken  in  alien  kanonischen  wie  auch  in  dieser  Hermas- 
Parallele  die  Lesarten  zwischen  CKKaKeiv  und  eyKaKeiv."     (Pp.  297,  298.) 

It  is,  however,  just  as  well  possible  that  Aphraates  made  the  change  from  the 
indirect  into  the  direct  form;  or,  what  is  still  more  probable,  he  found  it  so  in  Tatian's 
Diatessaron.  Aphraates'  testimony  is  not  sufficient  to  prove  the  assertion  that  this  is 
a  word  of  Jesus.  But  in  any  case,  even  if  Resch  be  correct,  the  use  of  this  text  does 
not  necessitate  the  opinion  that  Aphraates  used  an  extra-canonical  gospel  beside  the 
Diatessaron. 

5.  "  For  it  stands  written  thus  :  The  good  is  destined  to  come,  and  well  for  him 
through  whom  it  comes ;  and  the  evil  is  destined  to  come,  but  woe  to  him  through 
whom  it  comes."  Resch  compares  with  this :  Dressel,  Clementina  Epitome  prima, 
chap.  96 :  0  Kvpios  t)plwv  Ir/irous  XpicrTos  o  utos  tov  6eov  ecpt]-  Ta  ayada  e\0eiv  5ei,  /xa/captot 
5e,  <p7j(nv,  5i'  ov  epx^Tai.  op.oiws  avayKrj  Kai  Ta  /co/ca  eX^eii',  ouat  de  5t'  on  epx^Tai,  and 
Dressel,  Clementina  Epitome  secunda,  chap.  96  :  o  /cupioj  i;/uwv  \i\<!ov%  XpiaTot  0  uiot 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGA  TIONS  3 1 

Sc,  P  shows  only  one  real  difference^*  in  that  long  list  of  sixty-five  names  : 
A  has  Jojakim  and  Jojakin,  while  Ss,  Sc,  P  have  Jechonja.  It  would  be 
extremely  hazardous  to  deny  on  the  basis  of  this  one  difference  that  A 
took  his  genealogical  lists  from  the  separate  gospels.  His  lists  are  not 
exactly  like  either  Ss,  Sc,  or  P;  now  they  approach  this  form,  now  that 
form  of  the  separate  gospels  f  they  are  most  closely  related  to  Sc,  where 
Sc  is  extant.  He  had  probably  a  copy  which  combined  the  different 
readings  or  all  three  texts  (perhaps  also  another  ?).  There  is  no 
evidence  for  the  existence  of  separate  genealogical  tables,  and  it  is 
therefore  the  most  probable  thing  that  A  took  his  genealogies  from 
the  separate  gospels,  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  ends  them 
with  the  remark  that  "Joseph  was  called  the  father  of  Jesus,"  which  is 
evidently  a  citation  from  Ss,  where  it  occurs  just  so.  If  he  used  only 
the  Diatessaron,  how  could  he  know  this,  since  Tatian  omitted  both 
the  genealogies  and  the  references  to  the  Davidic  descent  ?  Strange 
that  he  should  use  the  same  expression  as  Ss,  when  he  made,  as  some 
think,  the  tables  himself  on  the  basis  of  the  Old  Testament ! 

2.  There  are,  moreover,  some  quotations  which  Aphraates  could 
by  no  means  have  taken  from  Tatian,  since  they  ran  counter  to  Tatian's 
belief  and  emphasized  that  which  Tatian  wanted  to  combat,  viz.,  the 
Davidic  descent  of  Jesus. 

Tou  Oiov  e<pr)-  ra  ayaOa  eXdeiv  5e<,  fuiKapios  5e,  <pr]<TLV,  5C  ov  epx^Tai.  Ofwiws  /cat  ra  KaKa 
avayKY]  e\deiv,  oi/a:  8e  tw  avdpwwct)  5i  ov  epx^Tat.  Resch  says  :  "  Durch  den  von 
Aphraates  uberlieferten,  ihm  aus  einer  schriftlichen  Autoritat  zugeflossenen  Text, 
welcher  mit  dem  Homilien-Citate  (Horn.  CI.,  XII,  29,  p.  130,  35):  0  tt;?  aXTjtfeioi 
■irpo<pT)T7)s  €<t>-r\-  ra  ayaOa  eXdeiv  Sei,  fiaKapios  5e,  (pr/ffiv,  5t'  ov  epxerar  Ofwius  xoi  ra  KaKa 
avayKT)  eKdeiv,  owat  5e  81'  ov  epxerai  —  wortlich  ubereinstimmt,  erfahrt  die  Glite  der  in 
den  Clementinen  fliessenden  vorzuglichen  Evangelienquelle  eine  neue  Bestatigung. 
Andrerseits  wird  durch  diese  Vergleichung  mit  dem  Clementinen-Citate  offenbar, 
was  man  aus  Aphraates  allein  nicht  zu  erkennen  vermag,  dass  die  von  ihm  citierte 
schriftliche  .\utoritat  ein  Herrenwort  in  sich  schloss,  fiir  dessen  Echtheit  somit  nunmehr 
drei  Zeugen :  Paulus  [Rm.  3:8],  Pseudo-Clemens  und  Aphraates  sich  nachweisen 
lassen,  abgesehen  von  dem  ersten  und  dritten  kanonischen  Evangelisten,  welche  die 
zweite  Halfte  des  Logion  ebenfalls  verwendet  haben." 

The  only  safe  conclusion  which  we  can  draw  from  this  is  that  Aphraates  took 
this  logion  from  the  Diatessaron. 

There  is  absolutely  no  necessity  to  believe  Jthat  Aphraates  used  an  apocryphal 
gospel.  All  the  differences  may  be  accounted  for  otherwise  quite  satisfactorily. 
Indeed,  some  of  these  passages  form  a  negative  argument  for  the  fact  that  Aphraates 
used  the  Diatessaron. 

3*Arpakohar  and  Abiur  of  Ss  are  evidently  copyists' errors  :  j  for  j.  No.  13 
A  om.,  Ss  Allan,  P  Cainan  —  very  probably  also  om.  by  Sc,  which  is  wanting  here  ;  c/. 
41-43,  where  the  opposite  case  occurs. 

37  30,  A  =  Ss  >  P  ;  32,  A  =  P  >  Ss  ;   41-43,  A  =  Sc>  Ss,  P. 


32  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

The  first  citation  is  already  mentioned:  "Joseph  was  called  the 
father  of  Jesus." 

The  second  is:  Luke  2:4,  "Jesus  was  born  by  the  virgin  Mary 
from  the  seed  of  the  house  of  David,  as  it  is  written  :  Joseph  and  Mary 
his  betrothed  zf(?r<?  both  from  the  house  of  David.''  Which  statement  was 
not  in  the  Diatessaron,  but  in  the  Sinaiticus.  (P  has  the  regular 
Greek  reading:  "because  he  was  of  the  house  and  lineage  of  David;" 
Sc  is  missing.) 

We  have,  then,  in  Aphraates  (i)  the  genealogies  and  (2)  the  Davidic 
descent  of  Jesus ;  both  matters  were  not  in  Tatian  ;  their  text  agrees 
with  that  of  the  separate  gospels ;  consequently,  Aphraates  used  in 
addition  to  the  Diatessaron  the  separate  gospels. 

But  now  the  question  arises :  In  which  form  does  he  use  the  sepa- 
rate gospels,  in  the  Sinaitic,  Curetonian,  or  Peshitta  text  ?  This 
involves  an  examination  of  the  different  quotations  which  Aphraates 
makes.     The  comparison  now  follows  : 


Matthew                                 A 

a: 

om. 

.oin^  oh.A:s£) 

3: 
4: 

:  2  .  aiL^oL.^  nr^ 
:  1 1               \ik'^^  oL-tt^f 

5: 
5: 

;  3  ^a\-M.Of£> 
:  13                         gi  »*\V 

5 
5 

:  14  >Ora 
:i8          \r^  UoZ\  ji- 

but  also 

V::» 

P 

Ss 

Sc 

r^? 

=  A 

=  P 

ail>o]^o 

=  P 

=  P 

©^-•:^5  'MlIso 

=  P 

=  P 

.09L^ 

=  P 

=r    P 

.oJoi 

=  P 

=    P 

om. 

om. 

=  A 

om. 

om. 

om. 

^%D    ](J10 

x^^ 

OSi-OO 

=  P 

Ol2^    Q^fJ) 

=Ss 

w4»Oi.£ 

=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

)i*Sv 

=  A 

>o,Jil. 

=  A 

)  4l.1n 

=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

Ir^a^ 

=Ss 

p^    O]    \f^    >CL* 

:=  A 

=  A 
but  adds 

1  ffln  \/l\  V/^ 


=    P  =    P 

=  A  =  A        ysfUi  Vsj 


Matthew 

A 

p 

5:19 

fS^o   -  -^SSn^ 

]fS>:^ 

li-D^ 

.  '^\Vo  ]f^j 

^jAlt   ^V,o   Vs 

li-Di^ 

l^iO 

5:23 

K  '^'"  r 

■  •^j  nV?  'Va^oi  c3iJ] 

01  »,  ^o 


PRELIM  IN  A  R  V  INVES  TIG  A  TIONS  3  3 

Ss  Sc 

=  P  =Ss 

but  om.  _fc? 

=  P  =  P 

^o  =  P 

rest  =  P    but  om.  — ^ 

jja:*  Vasoi  ^]  =  P 
except  ^£Jtf) 

»oCkZo  ^Si-e-^?  ^1  jii'^iSr'^J^.^JJSiJ  M  =  P  except    >o,j5  for  Vi^ 

^0-]?  {cf.  A) 

£J|  i-i-i.]  ^a-.l  ''Oi,?       'r^'i  r^?-"^  ^^o  ,-kai:i,Z(=  A) 

.^J^iof  >-o-m  A>  >Cflo  1^^]    >:|^  1^  >f>3-i»1  ;*\S    1^^-:^]  jtNs  i^t-t^j      i-^^]  ^^r-^? 

l^i.?^]  >c,_Da^  else  =  P 

5 :  29                             om.                            )1  .\i.»                        =  P  =  P 

=  P  =  A 

=  A  =  P 

5:30                             om.                            JToVi*?             om.  vs.  30  —  P 

5 ;  35                           \^^                                 om.                         om.  om. 

=  A                        =  A  V^ifi 

>^ai  )  >  '"n  "I? 

=  A                     A—I.Z  =  A 

5  :  36              >>-^i-=  Us]o                     «f-^r=  i^^i             f-^r^  U©  =  A 

5:39-41                       om.                            \\  *Sn«?                        =A  =A 

U^l                       =  A  [U^]] 

=  A                       =  A  jici? 

om.                       =  A  =  A 

om.                       =  A  =  A 

.  nml?                     .^Ic:^  ^®tJ?                       ~  ^  (  —  p 

'^^"^1^      (=  A)  s-amJo  J 

ovl.  ^coi                   (71^  ^-o~n^                        =  P  =  P 

om.                               '^^^.a-^                        =  A  =  P 

6 : 6                           }Jo£^                             ^oiJi»                        =  A  =  A 

\  .ffl-''-'                          )  tm-i^?                       =  A  =  A 

Ulo                                >^a£]o                         =  P  =  P 

\y^  )  .m->                     )  »  W 1  -^i  ll-M?               =  P  +  001  =  P 

om.                           I '  '^  ^ ■^                       =  A  =  A 


34 


NEiV  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 


Matthew                        A 

P 

Ss 

Sc 

6: 

:8 

"^f^  ooi   ^osa^] 

'^r*  r^  ^^] 

=Ss 

oOo^U^Z  }^fL^ 

^a-a^  U^^C^  ill£ 

=  P 

^n_-i,^  j^s^Vr  ^^^ 

>^gi.1nN|^Z  )J,J^ 

=  A 

=:    P 

6: 

9 

^o:j]  o:^^ 

=  A 

=  A 

6: 

12 

(twice)              ^s|o 

ws]?  jOa*] 

missing 

=    P 

=  A 

6: 

19 

missing 

=  A 

20 

'^  ^-^"^^ 

missing 

6: 

cm. 

om. 

Us)o  inns* 

missing 

=  A 

•  •ii    /-, 

=  A 

•ooiZ 

only  i_»^for  o 

^]  joaO 

wS]o    O01 

=  A 

only  diff.  posit. 

7 

;8 

=  A 

missing 

^Jk£Lli    ]XJ^O 

ai:^ 

(TL^    WM^uS^Llfi 

rest  =  P 

8 

:8 

cm. 

=  A 

=:    P 

9 

:28 

ta\  rr^nC^ 

=  P 

missing 

r^l? 

,  nSVi\  ]9cn 

W  r^l? 

9 

:29 

<^  lotnJ 

.aal:;;^  )o(nJ  j 

=  P 

missing 

10 

:27 

P]  r^l? 

=  A 

Ujicj, 

missing 

^TlOi^o] 

=  A 

y«01Oi^| 

]H-«"^ 

=  A 

j^noLs 

PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGA  TIONS 


35 


Matthew 
I  I  : 28-30 


12:36 


12:36 


12  :  40 


14:31 
15:11 


15:17 


15:  19 


A 

om. 
om. 

c 


■   >Sro  « 


<^V.V 


V 

also  =  Ss,  Sc 


p 

Ss 

Sc 

=  A 

oA 

=  A 

=  p 

=  P 

=  A 

=  A 

Ur^^ 

n\n  n  4- 

missing 

=  A 

-i^ 

=  P 

=  P 

^-H^f 

=  P 

=  P 

t\-inVo 

=  P 

=Ss 

^01    X-fcixO 

om.  >*(n 

=  A 

I^JxJlS 

=  A 

=  A 

^oWSnJ? 

=  A 

^Q:iiij 

U^^ 

^Q^AJ 

9ila.^J:!wS 

^al^^ 

«.Vv. 

=  A  )Zn\.\ 

=  A  =  A 

>  n*mVi  ]sn-iq\  =  P 

i  ^linS  i>1|n\  oil. 


om.  aiX^ 

^1  t:^<Ji 


om. 


=  P 
=  P 

=  P 

=  P 
=  P 

=  P 


^^v 


£ls 


=  A 
=  A 


=  P 

=Ss 

=  P 
=  P 

=  P 

=  P 

=  P 

=  P 

=  P 


36 


NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 


Matthew 
17:19 


\oa\Z 


U^9 


.^  ^"'^i   " 


18:3      1-^  ,^01  >fA 


om. 

but  also  =  P,  Ss,  Sc 

18:14  l^^(i.^)U 


18:  15 


18:16 


18:17 


om. 
om. 

01^  '  no  n  4- 
om. 

om. 
om. 


q  ^oi^i. 


^^^ 


=  A 

=  A 
om. 
=  A 
=  A 

cm. 
^^  ^1 

om. 
om. 
=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

>cas  Vl> 

o] 

=  A 


Ss 

Sc 

^]? 

001    ^1? 

Zooi  L^] 

1 091.^9 

om. 

=  A 

?  ^oZji^l 

=  A 

p£ui.1. 

)XiJ9 

=  A 

)ja^gi         "^ 

om. 

om. 

=  P 

^  r-  t^l 

=  P 

=  P 

=  A 

=  A 

om. 

=  A 

om. 

=  A 

^91  as] 

=  A 

-P(A) 

=  PCA) 

=  A 

=  A 

^] 

.n  10  n| 

VaflU 

=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

=  P 

=  p 
r=  p 

=  A 


=  A,  but  om. 


=  P 

=  A 

=  P 

=  Ss 
=  P 
=  A 

=  A 
*i  t  >  11  \oai2 


=  A 


PRELIM  IN  A  R  V  IN  VES  TIG  A  TIONS 


37 


Matthew 
l8  :  20 


A 


18:35 
19: 28 
21:38 

21  :43 
21  :44 


22  :  27 


18:21  om. 

P 

«^"^^  vs  nA, 

)]) 

^On2^^9    Z091 

C'-  Ss,  Sc,  vs.  30 
om. 
om. 

22:29  w® 

22  :  30  oai^j  i-i^  ^  «N«i 

^^^ 


P 

|£^Z  ol 
=  A 

=  A 

API  f^l'U 

=  A 


"1 


>AOia^99Z. 
Z£uiJ^  .o^iIiibS) 

=  A 
om. 

=  A 


Us] 


Ss  Sc 

=    P  =    P 

wC   Ul    li?  =  A 

=  A  ^i^ 

=  A     }]  oi::*  i^i 

=  A  =  A 

=  A  =  A 

=  A  =  A 

=  A  =  A 

]Zoi^  mZi-k 

=  A  =  P 

f 

omits  this     J  except 
verse         1      VsZ?  for 


v^9i     ]Z^i  >a9i  (n^ 
missing  =  P 


r-^ 


missmg 

=  A 
=  A 
=  A 


=  P 
=  Ss 
=  A 
=  A 
Us| 

=  Ss 


=  p 

=  A 

=  p 

=  P 

=  p 

=r    P 

om. 

om. 

38 


NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 


Matthew                              A 

P 

Ss 

Sc 

22  :  30                   -fA^.    ''**>-J^ 

^1  !3] 

missing 

=   P 

]aiX? 

.oau»£hA] 

).Vi4>? 

]M>eu^?  ).kl>so 

om. 

om. 

om. 

22:31                       .nVnnI? 

|2^? 

£ui^  ^»  ) 

=  P 

\i:l^ 

]l^^  ) 

]^£uas 

om. 

om. 

om. 

]  *..,v«V  ]«^  ^s^\^ 

^oa^  ^m,  v^^ 

loiX   ■^]i  I 

=  Ss 

\jjija  ^ 

^]?  ]ai3^  ^ 

S 

=  P 

=  P 

=  P 

=  A 

^  P 

joffi  y  jov^  ](jio 

=  A 

]£^^:^? 

]Z^*ifi?  f 

i^V*'^^ 

I--?  v^ 

=  P 

=  P 

23:15              ^'r^? 

^^i^^ 

=  P 

=  P 

23:25,27         oij^  JAia:^ 

^oM  -«^r^? 

=  P 

missing 

lia^l^o 

=  A 

^oM^-^^ 

cf.  first  line 

a^^o 

•^?  ^ 

=  A 

1  >  oi^  Ti  ../-.   }\nK   jlv^ 

Uaal4  Vso  V 

=  P 

]r=^ 

=  P 

om. 

).,A.>r^l;o 

=  A 

om. 

=  A 
but  om. 

missing 

■   i")  it^^g 


24  :  20 


25:34 


•       =  A 


=  A 

.o£u*09i 

=  P 

missing 


missing 


missing 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGATIONS 


39 


Matthew 

A 

P 

Ss 

Sc 

25:35 

,<JJo£u<JlL30 

£^091      OLty^ 

missing 

missing 

l^^oJ 

=  P 

25:37 

V^ 

Vi^ 

=  P 

=  P 

25:40 

>«r^? 

U>a2? 

missing 

l-o't-o? 

I'a:^! 

^1^, 

om. 

om. 

25:41 

om. 

)ViS\> 

=  P 

)i_»£C^9  ^01 

=  A 

|..^V 

l^H^q 

=  P 

25:44 

^i^    -£0^1 

^^:^]  ^j:^ 

=  P 

25:45 

y^  offi 

y,    j^ioa? 

001  ? 

missing 

i'oi.i 

\'>^\ 

^:^, 

om. 

om. 

26:53 

U^9 

ol 

=  P 

missing 

w  u^  ^i? 

l:^]?  M 

=  P 

^1^ 

=  A 

^1  ^ 

^Ui^5  u-.- 

,^    "^ivJo 

^ 

=    P 

but  om.  i^oi 

28:  19 

0.0  Q.S 

missing 

missing 

28:20 

om. 
om. 

la. 

missing 

missing 

>3li^9  i:>fif:^  giSnSn^N  "S^r^ 


40 


NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 


Matthew 

A 

P 

Ss 

Sc 

28  :20 

but  also  : 

^sa:^, 

missing 

missing 

Mark 

A 

p 

Ss 

Sc 

5:41 

)-^    )-^ 

u:^ 

missing 

missing 

9:24 

^i^^ 

om. 

=  A 

missing 

^ZnTSn»gi2^ 

Zo\  t  w  mN 

missing 

U»aLl 

../aIVw  .m 

16:16 

^_:>a^(nl£9  r^? 

„_v^i^cnV£,  )ju] 

om.  this 

missing 

^OO     \.M^    |J^Q^O 

conclusion 

of  Mark 

^?Z£^ 

■  '^^  '■'^^ 

16  :  17 

]oa\Z  ]Z|  l»(3i 

^?  l^oZ] 

omits 

missing 

r 

=  A 

=  A-\-~^ 

om. 

=  A 

.ooaO  \j\^ 

jy).^    .v/^^*^ 

)1>N^? 

]  1  A.V.SO 

h.s^ 

.oooO   .oen-»|.^]o 

.0(71^'i^]o 

=  P,  but 

joi-k-^  ''^^  .oSn.wl 

position  of 
words  is 

different 

Luke 

A 

P 

Ss 

Sc 

I  :  13 

:^v:^^  ) 

^^^^( 

=  A 

^'^Jafl-*.    H-^i*^ 

missing 

]0lX    >0,-D 

om. 

1:30 

]aiX  >c,_D 

]3iX  zq:^ 

missing 

missing 

I  148 

giZn-itiVi-o 

|>,^^v^^ 

=  A 

missing 

2:4 

>a^i^o  y.aisa.^9  j 

.O0U»VZ  giZ^  t  nV>  > 

=  W-H 

=  A 

missing 

^099  en£w«^  — ^  ) 

2:14 

).\n^^  v->V^ 

|A^nnA>Z 

missing 

Uk^Vs  \h^:LSL^Zo 

>co^  lollop 

>coi.:»aD  loi^ll 

i^iN*.  M  V^o 

)^iVs  >qV^o 

PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGA  TIONS 


41 


Luke 
2:14 


3:8 

6  :  24 
6:30 
6:45 


A 

but  also : 


^*J)  Vo^ 


\' 


but  also  =  P 
7:  14        1'^-'^^  |Sn«\S 

>OQ_0 

8:52  001    jViiVi 

9  :  59,  60  .^Zalu  Izjo 


10:  19 


12  :  19 


om. 


Ss 


Sc 

missing 


^oS*.^Ss(P^U'a^^) 
I  .^/^^»^^  twice  in  A,  neither  in  P  nor  Ss 
]A  ^^  ^  A.,  /  from  P 
j^?)^  from  Ss 
{.^  ]^.£i»  from  P 
{.▲J]  >»1n\  from  Sc 

aiasZ?  =  A 

om.  .a.s  1-ka.s 

=  p 


=  Ss  except 

(=  A,  P) 
missing 

missing 


=  A 

the  same  in  the 
parallel  Matt.  9  :  24 

om. 


o£ukOOI9 


V 


I  1  .  V«     •    .  ffl  .. 


=  P 

=  P 

in  Matt.  9  :  24 
=  A 

om. 

r=   P 

=  p 
=  p 
^  p 


missmg 


missmg 

=  A 

missing  in 
Matt. 

\Ao 

=  P 

=  P 


=  Ss 

=  Ss 
=  P 
=  P 
=  A 


42 


NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 


Luke 

A 

P 

Ss 

Sc 

12:19 

>c,ie  Mai 

=Ss 

]090 

— aooO 

=  P 

=  P 

12  :  21 

).lsai9 

001    )J^(71 

=  P 

=  P 

14:11 

>a*?Z£J?  (^)  Vs 

H-N5,>^r>?  '^ 

=  P 

=  P 

v^IlI?  ''**.jo 

=  P 

=  P 

14:12 

^£0^]? 

Jv^ 

=  P 

=  P 

0]  UojJi 

=  A 

cm. 

=  A 

]r^^ 

\:f£i  ]ooiZ 

=  A 

=  A 

r^^^f^ 

=r  A 

=  P 

>^.^i^y  oj 

e]  .^1  Us] 

1 

=  Ss 

1 

Usio 

13o 

=  P 

=  P 

,•*-.*-<*. 

=  A 
=  A 

=  Ss 

\^h^ 

=  A]i 

^£^?^^:i^] 

,^1 

p? 

l'^:^? 

=  P 

=  p 

po, 

=  A 

=  A 

om. 

14:13 

^£^1 

li^ 

=  P 

=  P 

om. 

Usoj. 

]K.\r.^^] 

).T,aMSn\ 

=  A 

=  A 

=  A 

i4  0^901^0 

'■^ 

l^ailv^o 

^11^^ 

yrrC^- 

)  m .  ^..N 

jSfl^M 

]  nnVi\o 

j  -1  nVi\o 

1  .VrnV^Vr, 

IV-^  Pr-]o 

14:  14 

jotnJo 

j-^joffO 

=  A 

=  A 

l-a-?!  >a:^ 

J^?!? 

=  P 

=  P 

15:7 

^o£J? 

^)z> 

^  P 

=  P 

^  r^^ 

Vi.  0] 

=  P 

=  A 

Vl.  ^.intlw 

^ooili.  \j^i^h:i£> 

=  A 

=  P 

16:  9 

jJai 

=  A 

om. 

:^  A 

^Qgi  iNN^Sn^ 

,oai-»^::i4ia^ 

=  A 

16:14  position  of  phrases 

=  A 

different 

missing 

16:  20 

(jiI^^Z  ^0^ 

(nL,9Z  Zal^ 

=  P 

missing 

PRELIMINARY  IxNVESTIGATIONS 


43 


Luke 
l6  :  21 


loai 
om. 


16:22  ]ooi» 

16  :  23  \on\  ilc9o 

16:24  >CLl.^ 

<4^  >:::4iJc 

16:25  »(jii, 

o 

31.110    £u4l^ 


V 


p 

Ss 

Sc 

091  ^a^)-»£c^o 

looi 

-^K'^' 

missing 

om. 

om. 

]ZoZ-^  ^ 

1 

—  A 

,_*1^'=l1? 

( 

^]   HI 

ws]o 

.n^Vv, 

=  P 

T^?  ]c<n 

jooio 

missing 

«.aJZ!^.«lo  ^0 

=  A.butom.jooi 

missing 

'^'■'  -  '-'^ 

=  p 

{.0^07    — ^ 


^aJ^-*^  ^ 


sZo^  .,-llc 


=  P 
except  ).alc 
after  inst.of 
before  .oj  nSl? 
and  ^^? 
for  _^ 


missmg 


issmg 


NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

A 


44 

Luke 
19:8 


19:9 

20:35  ■'::*^1? 

om. 

^001  Ir^a^  Us] 

20  :  36  AV/^v/^V*  ^M^^ 

.    ..  >^  A  V^     |] 
^1     PI 

om. 
om. 

20:38  0(31^i»3»    '^MCao 

21:23  ]^)J 

091 

23  :  4.3  -'^^  )lVin  *> 

(twice)  ^jJs.  £0^ 


P 
=  A 


>-£oZ 


^^ 


Us] 


Ltf    A'^^^V    _A 


Ss 
=  A 

=  A 

^?^^^ 
=  A 

=  A 

om. 

=  P 

but  om.  wsjo 

lis] 


»]    .om^  a^o£^.^] 


»^ 


>^r^ 


Sc 
=  A 

=  Ss 

=  A 
=  Ss 

=  A 
=  P 
=  P 


=  Ss 
=  Ss 


om.     j-Of  ^\  j^ll^tf    ]tn^7  ).dJ-S 


\= 


*M 


)o(nJ 
pai 

=  A 


=  P  =  P 

=  P  =  P 

:^    P  =    P 

=  A  ^*:ia:^9  )Xaoa^ 

=  P  =  A 


John  A 

I  :  5    (twice)  |otn  ^siJU^ 

1:14  (twice)  Zooi  ]i-^ 

I :5I  fS 

2:19  poi  lla^t'i 

^©^]  ^Vm? 

3:12 


p 

O9oAJ0 

pal  )la^ai 

om. 


Ss 
missing 

missing 


Sc 
=  A 

=  A 


missmg 

missmg 

missing 

missing 

=  P 

missing 

ILa^si 

missing 

missing 

=  A 

PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGATIONS 


45 


John 

A 

p 

Ss 

Sc 

3 

:  12. 

missing 

^]  ^  U^l  .  ^oial 

^  U^l 

V:.^]r^] 

=  Ss 

,-.::^l  Vi.  ^aa:^. 

).Sn>-?^^^.^| 

Ss, 
fro 

Sc  differ 

m  A  only 

in 

the    posi- 

^alia-5iZ  ^1 

.nnlSntTiZ 

v"^  M  ^\ 

tion    and    in 
the    suff.    of 

^ajiiiA-kjiZ 

the 

;  last  word 

3 

:i3 

^lii 

Ul 

=  P 

=  P 

JOOI     ^310lukj» 

^OlO^Uftj) 

=  P 

=  A 

)  .^/,*^ 

=  A 

Uifl^  ^ 

=  A 

3 

:34 

JAS.n^ 

u^^ 

=  A 

v^nof]  ot^ 

]9lX 

M  l<nX 

missing 

also  \ci\ 

3 

:35 

missing 

>Q-i»^ 

V=  >a^^]o 

^S9L^    >0|^    'VsO 

=  P 

This  variation  in  A 

is  due  to  the  verse  in  Matt.  21  : 

27. 

which  he 

quotes  immediately 

following  this. 

5: 

22 

u  ^q  M 

W  i-^joa,  q  j 

(                  =Sc 

=  A 

vV 

>-^y  vl?  i 

1 

on 

ily  adding 

=  A 

=  A 

5: 

:25 

missing 

=  P 
=  A 
=  P 

5: 

28, 

29                             .3.^0 

om. 

missing 

=  A 

om. 

6: 

55 

^ 

=  A 

Qj^ 

-i-^  ^ 

-He 

=  P 

=     P 

v^IaO?   ^^ 

>^^9 

=  P 

=     P 

6: 

59 

u. 

Uj 

=  A 

=     P 

7: 

371 

(twice)    jcn^?  Vs? 

1.1^  ^1  ^1 

'"i?  ^ 

=  Ss 

0  : 

9 

=  A 

missing 

46 


NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 


John 
10  :  II 


lo:  i6 


lo:  17 


10:30 
II  :23 

1 1  :26 

12  :26 
12:35 


13:8 
13:9 


13:  10 
13:  12 

13:  14 


01  4°i1  \^a\^ 
oU^i  JLs]  Vi. 

om. 

U^ 

jx^,  Us]  Vl  |j] 
(twice)  ,_!-. 

■'•'"  "]  >ca.aJ 

om. 

i4 

13] 

cm. 

001 

^o£J]  ^jJ  ]ai 
.nn\  )]o 


cm. 

cm. 
]j<n  'M^^ 


Ss 

Sc 

=  A 

missing 

om. 

missing 

missing 

missing 

=  A 

missing 

=  A 

missing 

om. 

-2^  \ 


=  A 


|J]  >oIjc  \lh 


=  A 

w 

j.sn  A  t>  )]) 
=  A 

001 

cm. 


,ot^- 


^oZU]  ^jji  ^oiJ] 
=  A 


V 


o^]   .   i  ni  M 


^1^] 

missing 

except  't^n  >i] 

=  A 

=  A 

=  P 

.CLasjfJ    )]^ 


\^ 


0001Z   .O^]) 


\" 


v^^-C^^? 


=  A 
=  A 
=  A 
^o 
=  A 
=  A 

•  r^ 

=  P 

=  A 
=  A 
om. 
=  A 


=  A 
=  A 

but  ^t  for  » 


missmg 

missing 

missing 
missing 

missing 
missing 
missing 
missing 
missing 
missing 


missmg 
missing 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGATIONS 


47 


John 

A 

13: 

:34 

iL£Xt^Z.i 

14: 

:  2 

UoUl 

14: 

:  3  (twice)                  hA 

^i 

14: 

23 

14: 

27 

.*\*, 

'5: 

:  12 

-iVit«; 

(several 

times) 

19: 

36 

20: 

13 

V 


oh^orni 


"^  "^-^ 


=  A 

=  A 
om. 


Ss 

Sc 

.OO01Z7 

missing 

\ 

=  A 

missing 

=  A 

missing 

=  A 

=  A 

Ml  \A 

r^^ 

r^l 

oni. 

om. 

^  P 

missing 

missmg 

=  P 
=  P 
=  P 


missmg 

missing 
missing 
missing 


The  comparison  printed  here  shows  that  the  text  of  Aphraates  is  in 
53  cases  like  that  of  P,  in  91  =  Ss,  in  76  =  Sc,  and  in  a  great  many 
others  different  from  all  three. 

Now,  subtract  from  the  number  of  cases  where  A  =^  P  all  those 
cases  where  either  Ss  or  Sc  is  missing,  or  both,  and  where  one  might 
reasonably  suppose  that  the  texts  agreed  with  P  and  A.  Subtract 
also  those  cases  from  P's  number  where  either  Ss  or  Sc  is  together 
with  P=  A.  Take  into  consideration  all  possible  amount  of  free  quo- 
tation, and  the  result  is  that  in  spite  of  it  all  there  are  enough 
passages  left  which  show  that  Aphraates  knew  and  used  the  Peshitto 
text  of  the  four  gospels. 

Apply  the  same  process  of  subtraction,  with  the  appropriate  modifi- 
cations, to  Ss  and  Sc,  and  the  result  is  that  Aphraates  knew  and  used  the 
text  of  both  Ss  and  Sc  in   his  quotations  from  the  gospels. 

This  is  a  rather  remarkable  and  unexpected  result  of  the  compari- 
son, yet  the  proof  is  /uce  clarius. 

But  how  are  we  to  explain  this  fact  that  Aphraates  used  the 
Diatessaron,  the  Peshitto,  Ss,  and  Sc  ?  It  may  be  that  he  had  a  text 
of  the  separate  gospels  which  had  combined  the  readings  of  Ss  and 
Sc  and  P  ;  and  for  this  the  peculiarities  in  the  text  of  Aphraates  might 
lend  at  least  a  slender  foundation.  I  mean  such  little  matters  as  the 
frequent  use  of  ,Ji^»  in  A,  which  is  not  so  often  in  P,  Ss,  Sc ;  or  the 


48  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

very  frequent  use  of  »  for  other  prepositions,  e.  g.,  V^Cao  ,  ^u^,  and  _*> ; 
or  the  use  of  the  plural  where  the  other  texts  have  the  singular.  But 
all  these  differences  may  be  due  to  Aphraates'  loose  method  of 
quoting  passages.  Moreover,  the  suggestion  is  only  a  conjecture,  and 
cannot  be  substantiated.  Perhaps  some  discovery  may  throw  fresh 
light  on  this  problem. 

The  easiest  solution  seems  to  me  something  like  the  following  : 
Aphraates,  the  bishop  of  the  monastery  of  Mar  Mattai,  was  an  educated 
man.  One  may  deny  that  he  was  a  fine  scholar  ;  that  he  was  an  earnest 
and  diligent  Bible  student  none  will  question  who  has  read  his 
homilies.  If  anyone,  he  must  have  known  and  used  the  text  of  the 
separate  gospels.  One  has  only  to  remember  that  the  ground  text  of 
Ss  was  made  already  in  the  second  century,  and  Sc  certainly  not  later 
than  250  A.  D.,  if  not  about  200  A.  D.  These  two  he  evidently  used 
privately  for  his  Bible  study.  Now  about  the  Peshitto.  Suppose  it 
had  come  into  existence  about  his  time  (340  A.  D.).  As  bishop  he 
must  have  become  at  once  familiar  with  the  new  work,  be  it  that  he 
met  it  on  his  visits  in  his  diocese,  where  perhaps  the  priests  might  use 
it  here  or  there,  or  be  it  that  the  translation  was  at  once  shown  to  him, 
the  bishop,  when  it  was  completed.  However  that  may  be,  his  exten- 
sive use  of  it  favors  rather  an  earlier  date  for  the  origin  of  the  Peshitto. 
We  have,  then,  in  Aphraates  nothing  else  than  this :  a  man  who  faith- 
fully studies  the  Bible  in  the  Diatessaron  as  well  as  in  the  three 
versions  existing  in  his  time,  writes  some  homilies,  and  here,  in  quoting 
from  memory  (there  is  no  doubt  that  he  did  that),  quotes  now  from 
this,  now  from  that  text,  apparently  without  being  conscious  that  he 
is  doing  something  extraordinary. 

This  shows  us  very  clearly  that  the  text  was  not  yet  settled  in  the 
Syrian  church.  The  church  had  not  yet  said :  "  This  is  our  text, 
not  that."  We  are  still  in  the  period  of  formation,  and  considerable 
fluctuation  is  seen.  The  strife  for  the  supremacy  of  the  text  has  not 
yet  broken  out  openly,  but  it  is  about  to  do  so  ;  the  Diatessaron  is  no 
more  exclusively  used  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  separate  gospels  seem  to 
have  been  made  more  use  of.  Which  of  the  two  parties  is  going  to 
win  ?  If  the  separate  gospels,  which  of  the  three  will  carry  off  the 
victory  ?  The  answer  we  find  in  the  next  few  decades,  during  which 
Ephraim  wrote. 

5.      TAe  Gospels  in  Ephraim. 

Rev.  F.  H.  Woods  has  collated  the  quotations  of  Ephraim, 
and   published  the  results  of  his  investigation  in  the  Studia  Biblica  et 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGATIONS  49 

Ecclesiastica  (Oxford,  1891),  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  105  ff.,  under  the  title, 
"  An  Examination  of  the  New  Testament  Quotations  of  Ephraem 
Syrus."  Since  he  has  given  the  variations  from  the  Peshitta,  etc.,  in 
full  on  pp.  120  ff.,  "Quotations  from  the  New  Testament  in  Ephraem 
Syrus  compared  with  the  Peshitta,"  etc.,  I  refer  to  that  comparison  as 
the  basis  of  the  following  assertions,  though  the  conclusions  of  his 
article  differ  from  my  own. 

First  of  all,  it  is  at  once  plain  that  Ephraem  knew  and  used  the 
Diatessaron.  He  wrote  a  commentary  on  it,  as  we  know.  Besides, 
the  many  passages  given  in  Mr.  Woods'  list  where  combinations  of  the 
different  gospels  are  found  to  show  the  same.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  he  used  the  Diatessaron.  But  it  is  also  clear  that  he  did  not  use 
it  frequently  in  his  other  works  outside  of  the  commentary  on  it. 
Most  of  his  quotations  are  taken  from  the  Peshitta.  That  was  his 
main  text.  One  sees  at  once  that  he  uses  it  much  more  than  Aphraates 
did.  But  P  was  not  the  only,  though  the  principal,  version  from  which 
he  quoted.  There  are  citations  whose  text  is  like  Sc  and  Ss,  and  differ- 
ent from  P. 

So  is  in  Matt.  3:  17  and  17:5  the  curious  reading  of  Ephraim 
«n.nMO  instead  of  ) ^ - ^ -  (P)  found  in  Sc  as  well  as  in  Ss.  Similarly 
21  :  38  was  cited  from  Sc  or  Ss,  not  from  P. — Matt.  5  :  39  and  Luke 
6:29a  are  taken  from  Sc,  not  from  P,  Ss ;  so  also  Matt.  16:26, 
Mark  8  :  36,  and  Luke  9:25  ?z|J  =  Sc  against  P  and  Ss. —  Luke  10  :  24 
is  quoted  from  Sc,  not  from  P  or  Ss. — John  i  :  3  is  as  clear  a  case  as 
one  might  wish  to  show  that  Ephraim  used  also  Sc ;  here  Ephraim 
agrees  in  three  points  with  Sc,  while  he  differs  in  those  points  from   P. 

Evidences  for  the  fact  that  Ephraim  used  also  Ss  are  such  passages 
as  Matt.  10:6  (Sc  is  wanting),  where  Ephraim  omits  with  Ss  against  P 
£u»li-»i-. ,  and  Ss  writes  for  o,^]?  of  P  Z^:^^?,  Ephraim  ^11^?.— Matt. 
20:  22  =  Mark  10:38,  where  P  has  .oZ^|-ik,  Uio  .o£^,»»  }]  (in  both 
passages),  Sc  agrees  with  P  in  Matt.  20  :  22,  is  missing  in  Mark  10  :  38, 
but  Ss  writes  in  both  passages  exactly  like  Ephraim  .o£«JJ  .v  .  }J 
^oZU]   ,--J:i»U.   \Xic  . — Luke   11  :  2,  P  =  Sc,  but  Ephraim  omits  with  Sc 

)  tVi**^? .     Also  the  best  Greek   MSS.   omit  17/^0)1/  6  kv  rdi<i  oipavoU. 

In  John  17:11  (Sc  wanting)  Ss  writes  with  Ephraim  ^ ,  P  j^) ,  though 
adding  with  P  U-.,_d  ,  which  Ephraim  omits  ;  but  Ss  inserts,  just  as 
Ephraim,  before  j^  the  word  ^aie . 

These  passages  make  it  clear  that  Ephraim  used,  besides  his 
Peshitta  text,  also  the  Curetonian  and  Sinaitic  texts.  It  may  be  that 
he  had  a  text  which  combined  the  readings  of  all  three  texts,  such  as 


50  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

we  see  it,  for  instance,  in  Luke  14:31,  where  he  combines  the  reading 
of  P,  Ss,  Sc,  and  reads  both  (P)  oijjeu*  |Ji-.|  (Ss,  So).  Or  it  may  be 
that  he  read  all  three  texts  side  by  side,  and  in  quoting  from  memory 
used  now  this,  now  that  text. 

It  is  not  at  all  necessary  that  Ephraim  knew  the  differences 
between  the  Syriac  and  Greek  texts,  or  that  he  had  a  Greek  text  before 
him.  All  the  quotations  are  easily  accounted  for  by  attributing  them 
to  these  three,  or  better  four,  sources,  T,  P,  Ss,  Sc. 

We  see  that  even  in  Ephraim  the  text  of  the  gospels  is  not  yet 
settled.  He  still  uses  the  Diatessaron,  but  it  is  no  longer  the  main 
text.  The  victory  in  the  battle  between  the  two  sets  of  texts,  the 
harmony  and  the  separate  gospels,  has  turned  toward  the  latter. 
Still,  the  final  step  is  not  yet  taken.  The  one  is  not  absolutely 
defeated,  the  other  not  yet  alone  in  the  field.  No  final  decision  is 
reached  as  yet. 

And  between  the  three  texts  of  the  separate  gospels  the  relative 
positions  are  different  now.  Aphraates  uses  more  Ss  and  Sc  than  P, 
but  Ephraim  quotes  far  more  from  P  than  from  Ss  and  Sc  combined. 
Ss  and  Sc  are  still  used  by  him,  are  still  influencing  his  citations,  but 
his  main  text  is  P.  But  also  here,  though  there  is  a  strong  tide  in 
favor  of  P,  a  decision  is  not  yet  reached.  But  what  it  will  ultimately 
be  is  already  clear.  Ephraim  points  too  clearly  the  way  to  be  mis- 
leading. 

II.      THE    ACTS    OF    THE    APOSTLES    AND    THE    EPISTLES. 

/.     In  the  Doctrina  Addai. 

The  Doctrina  Addai  speaks  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the 
epistles  as  follows  :  "  But  the  law,  and  the  prophets,  and  the  gospel, 
which  ye  read  every  day  before  the  people,  and  the  epistles  of  Paul, 
which  Simon  Peter  sent  us  from  the  city  of  Rome,  and  the  Acts  of  the 
twelve  apostles,  which  John,  the  son  of  Zebedee,  sent  us  from  Ephesus  ; 
these  books  read  ye  in  the  churches  of  Christ,  and  with  these  read  not 
any  others,  as  there  is  not  any  other  in  which  the  truth  that  ye  hold  is 
written,  except  these  books,  which  retain  you  in  the  faith  to  which  ye 
have  been  called."     (P.  44.) 

There  are  no  quotations  made  either  from  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
or  from  the  epistles  of  Paul,  a  fact  which  is  in  harmony  with  the  pur- 
pose of  the  book.  The  catholic  epistles  and  the  Revelation  are  not 
included  in  the  canon  of  the  church. 


PRELIMINARY  INVESTIGA  TIONS  5  I 

The  bearing  of  the  quotations  on  the  history  of  the  canon  may  better 
be  discussed  under  the  reconstruction  of  the  history  of  the  canon  later 
on.  Here  it  suffices  to  have  quoted  the  testimony  and  the  extent  of 
the  canon  as  given  in  the  Doctrina  Addai. 

2.     In   Aphraates. 

Aphraates  quotes  from  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  several  times.  Of 
Paul's  epistles  he  quotes  Romans,  i  and  2  Corinthians,  Galatians, 
Ephesians,  Philippians,  Colossians,  i  Thessalonians,  i  and  2  Timothy, 
and  Titus;  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  is  also  cited  as  Pauline  through- 
out. He  does  not  cite  2  Thessalonians  and  Philemon.  There  is  no 
trace  of  the  catholic  epistles  and  the  Revelation.  The  passages  cited 
by  Wright  as  referring  to  i  Peter  4:18  and  i  John  3  :  24  ;  4:15  have 
been  shown  by  Zahn  not  to  refer  to  those  passages.  In  the  first  pas- 
sage it  is  a  citation  from  "  Solomon  "  (Prov.  11  :  31);  the  other  citation 
is  evidently  taken  from  the  gospel  of  John,  and  not  from  the  epistle. 
Strangely  enough,  Parisot  and  Gwynn  still  maintain,  with  no  ground 
that  he  uses  i  John,  and  they  infer  from  it  his  use  of  the  rest. 

The  extent  of  his  canon  as  regards  Acts  and  the  epistles  of  Paul 
is  the  same  as  that  of  the  Doctrina  Addai.  He  quotes  a  good  deal 
from  them,  most  of  his  quotations  being  from  i  Corinthians. 

Whether  Aphraates'  epistle  text  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  Peshitta 
or  not  is  a  question  which  we  must  now  seek  to  answer.  The  Peshitta 
has,  in  addition  to  the  epistles  of  Paul,  also  the  epistle  of  James,  i 
Peter,  and  i  John,  which  Aphraates  has  not.  Is  his  epistle  text,  in  spite 
of  this,  the  same  as  that  of  the  Peshitta,  which  might  not  yet  have  had 
these  epistles  in  Aphraates'  time,  or  is  it  different?     This  necessitates 

A  Comparison  of  the  Acts  and  Epistles  in  Aphraates  with  those  of  the  Peshitta. 

Acts    14:22,  A  li--^   |J^o)j=,   P  \ch   M^oU.     The  Greek  has  8ta 

TToXAwv  ^Xii/'cwi' =  A. —  19:3,   A    riViWi^     r,i-^^>^?     ©r^jo    .oZ,_J»o_^»    0(jO]< 

Rom.  I  :  3,  4,  A  (introduced  by  75UC  \  tt*\A.o)  >-i ^\ V  _i£  )  --  ^'^  ''^a.*-*) 
|-fc.?sji»  U.oi^  y-»o>  ^.as?  )^?-|  ,_i^  |o(3i  ,    P  ,_i^  jjins  r^-^l?  o<^    ""r^  ''^^ 

h,A£>    ^^     >a£)      -A.0,-0    ^.MOj^O     '\-*-ii£     131^9     \t-^     "^i-kZlc     |-k09     £u>^9    j^i] 

♦''^Q.A-k  \'Ljl:a .  The  quotation  is  free,  but  in  the  main  there  is  agreement.  There 
is  a  difference  between  Joti  >3-ki^  — :»c  and  ;"^^  ,.lii^Z|)  and  in  j-^ojjs 
i.A»Q_o»    and    wA,o,_D    -moj-c  .     And  here  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  Greek 


52  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

yevofievov  could  be  translated  either  way,  and  also  that  the  reading  of  )-i»o^ 
].M.9a^9  is  a  more  literal  translation  of  the  Greek  Kara  Trvev/Aa  ctytwo-wi;;  than 
the  reading  of  P  «_^Ofj  ^^cj^ . —  5:14,  Aphraates  read  here  a  different  text 
from  P.  He  omits  at  first  the  phrase,  "in  the  likeness  of  the  transgression  of 
the  law  of  Adam,"  and  affixes  vs.  12,  "so  that  it  [death]  has  also  come  over 
all  men,  as  it  has  come  over  Adam."  But  a  few  lines  later  he  says  in  sum- 
ming up :  "Also  over  those  who  did  not  sin  did  death  reign  because  of  the 
transgression  of  the  law  of  Adam  ;"  which  shows,  taken  in  connection  with 
the  first  quotation,  that  the  Greek  cttI  tw  ofioKofxart  was  differently  translated. 
—  7  :  5,  A  reads  liJfl^?  =  " carnal ;"  P  reads  j;"^*"  =  " in  the  flesh  ;"  A  omits 
i-u^  and  jjcaicJLs? .  A  reads  jooiJ,  P  ^.iJ.  So  A  translates:  "When  we 
were  carnal,  the  passions  of  the  sins  were  active  in  our  members,  so  that 
we  were  [or  became]  fruits  for  death."  P  =  "When  we  were  in  the  flesh,  the 
passions  of  the  sins  which  are  through  the  law  were  active  in  our  members 
that  we  should  brittg  fruits  unto  death."  The  Greek  has  €v  rrj  aapKL  as  P, 
but  some  MSS.  have  rrj  crapKt.  The  eis  to  KapTro<fioprj(TaL  tw  OavaTw  may 
have  been  differently  translated. —  8  :  ga,  A  reads  -«*o^» ,  P  ■-^oj^  ;  A  |-i»e» 
]  ^'  -■^«.  P  |auX?  ai^ob  ;  A  ^,  P  Ijia:^. —  8  ;  g^^,  A,  "the  Spirit  of  Goif," 
but  P,  "the  Spirit  of  Christ,"  thus  reversing  the  order  of  vss.  ga  and  gd.  This 
again  is  paralleled  by  other  Greek  MSS. 

I  Cor.  1:27-30,  A  adds  .03i_c  ;  A  ](rL*-ji  ,  P  jV/^Vv*  ^(jiootjj  . —  1:28, 
A  Vf^^o  i^aici^  v^y  * M  m  ,  P  jSiNs-^  .001^910^  j  »i  *"?  ;  A  j  iSmSne , 
p  )  .VMy^V^  . —  I  :  29,  A  jauX  >c,-D  ,  P  ^(jiaio,_D  .  Most  Greek  MSS.  =  A, 
but  some  =  P  htnTTLov  avrov. —  i  :  30,  A  .oU]  a0^9 ,  P  ^7  .oIO)  -s| 
)  " '  ^ '^  '5^Q_4^t£  .oZ^J]  (nXiO  .  In  vs.  30  A  seems  to  be  a  more  concise  render- 
ing of  the  Greek  ii  avrov  Sc  v/u,ets  ea-re,  while  P  is  more  intent  here  to 
give  the  Greek  construction. —  3:16  (three  times),  "Ye  are  the  temple  of 
God,  and  the  Spirit  of  Christ  dwells  in  you,"  \  --  *^'^*  (ji-i»o9o ,  P  (n-i»oJo 
](n_X? .—  7:26,  A  jv^Vv^. ,  P  )j^i,  ;  [A  ^«AS ,  P  ^.-JLS?]  ;  A  ^.J^^ , 
P  I  ^i^  ^V  .     Both  A  as  well  as  P  are  attempts  to  render  into   Syriac   the 

Greek  8ia  t^v  eveo-Twcrav  dvayKjjv. —  g  :  5,  A  \m^  ,  P  ]ZiJ]  ]£wi»  .  Aphraates 
adds  uji)")  jlo  m  >cu:»  }]  P] .  The  reading  of  A,  "wives,"  yrvatKas  instead 
of  the  more  common  reading  aSe\cf>r)v  yvvaiKa,  which  is  represented  by  P, 
is  paralleled,  as  is  well  known,  by  other  witnesses ;  c/.  Tischendorf,  ad  loc. — 
10 :  27,  A  adds  j^wklo^^}]  ;  many  others,  £ts  SetTrvov  ;  A  ^cjjo? ,  P  >o-iJ3  Z.h^^  ; 
A  omits  1'"'""'^  J3?. —  12:31,  A  l^lukic  jI^soiQii;  I,_k1 ,  P  |?£ufcic?  U-Jo] . — 
15:  14,  A  .ZolOf^o  ^ajZnTSn  tgi  •^n\  U4'.£  >  P  ^o  )  n  *j  m  .Zoloj^  ^rr\  }-a-»i-ffi 
-a=Zilljal-»5i . —  1 5  :  40  (twice),  A  J2i?|.£?  osi  ,__ki-».]o  )  iSfiA*^?  ^r-^  ®^  ^r"^?  • 
P  )-ai.9l  ]-^  h^o  jl.^fc.  1-j^  £w*o .—  I  5  :  36-38,  A  Jj]  M  '^^1?  j^l  iLuc 
!,_»  \ZYfSi  PI  :gi  nmS*^.  ,  *\*?  osi   ^j  jotn  )]  £J]  ^^l^  >Cr^  ooio   -.X*^  U  A^ 


PRELIM  IN  A  RY  IN  VES  TIG  A  TIONS  5  3 

♦  J^o  p-"]  ^r^  "f^'V^  <"^  ■'■^'^^  _*5  jauX  :  3uii  >_soi_»^^ ,  P  omits 
Vlj"!  ,  reads  }]  J  for  |]] ,  for  ui  nm\''>- — looiiJ ,  ]ogiVi\  ,-»£^?  li-^  ooi  looi  )1 
£J]  '^^1 ,  omits  \f^  ,  X^'f-^  for  i^i-^? ,  oO-t^?  for  gi  4=^1? ,  >^g\^  for  >  on\Sn , 
omits  ^^■pi',  transposes  vss.  38a  and  38<J. —  15:51  (three  times),  A  .^^i^? 
>-a:ik-£J  ^"^^  U  U]  ^r^,  P  ■  ■^\..:u  ^?  ,_l*s  ^  fJ  ,Ji^  i^.  Aphraates 
agrees  with  Cod.  5^  ,  Travres  KOLfjurjO-qdOfxida,  ov  Travrcs  Se  dAAayr/(ro/u,€^a,  while 
Peshitta  is  in  agreement  with  the  other  Greek  MSS.,  which  read  Travres  ov 
KOifxrjOrja-ofjLeOa,  Travres  Sc  dAXayT/ao/xt^a. —  15  :  54,  A  £u*)j-*.aJ  It-s-s  j  Vi^^C^ 
£L-kU-.ci  >c)_Do,  P  U- oS  Ij^  >c}-o  ).1>°i1  ]^  '«>>»i}io.— 15  :  55,  A  i-a^]? 
I^aic  ^^3^1  ^31  ■  P  '^a-k^  sAsZas")  ^01  Uia|o  .  A's  reading  is  the  regular 
1T0V  <Tov  Odvare  to  vikos,  but  P's  reading  is  also  found,  ttov  rj  vlkt}  (tov  ddvare. 

2  Cor.  5  :  3,  A  V^i:^.  --^iwiJ  |3  ^^4nN?  iio  ,^?  ^oLjk.]') ,  P  1^  ^]  }]] 
\4i^  —2^  wMf^b^J  _4.£i2i»? . —  5:21,  A  second  person  plural,  P  first  person 
plural;  A  joOi.}^  ]Zaja-»?-| ,  P  ]<n^]?  \Zan^')} .— g  :  6 ,  A  ,^  \:l'>}  jJoi? ,  P  ]?oi 
_io  — *» ;  A  ?Ojj»J ,  P  ?^  ;  A  ^» ,  P  —  ;  A  ]£w£?clc  ,_i^ ,  P  ji^ia-ac  >^] . 
This  last  difference  is  attested  by  other  texts  also. 

Gal.  3:11,  A  wc??},:^  }]  w*J]  jjffaioJ  x^-^ic? ,  P  ^-*Ji  -o??>^  .^--?  ^7 
)9uJ^    Zol^    )j0ala_l— £ . —  5:12,    A   .oJoi    _aq.^Z^^    aAa.^^£Ci£    — ^9    wso^.^-]) 

.0.0^       ^  -  "'^**  -'^  >]  ,       P        omiLsJ      ■   ^^^°.^A      ^        OmitS      ^^''^^^^l  • 

The  Greek  diroKOij/ovTaL  is  understood  by  Aphraates  in  the  same  way  as  it 
was  understood  by  Chrysostom  and  Theophylact,  "utinam  genitalibus 
exscindantur  illi  qui  vos  conturbant."  (Cf.  Bert,  p.  177.)  —  6:  i,  A  'V^aoiiZN.J  , 
P  ^f£L^  . 

Eph.  2  :6  (twice),  A  ,-aJoi? ,   P  (nioii.  ^Vn  n]o  . 

I  Thess.  4:  17,  A  —DOfS^  <nJ^^o(]  % S  \  ■   « i»y.3  j — o— »?1   ,   iVi«  p   , s; , 

P    I •> •' '^ ^    If-M^]    .osilol^    ..24^^^    .  1  «* ««?     ,   Tj  t.A->^^    .   «\*]     ■  T  M    .    t,  tjio 

1  Tim.  I  :  13,  A  l^iX    «\S  >cu.9o  ,   P  ZOJ—  Z]  ]i]  . 

2  Tim.  3:  16,  A  £u*oai  jsi^)  001  ^Of£9,   P  ^^LzZ]  J-moj.^)  . 

Hebr.  4:g  (three  times),  A  01^9  a\L£XA,  ^si  )Vi*  n  '^  «"i|^? .  P  v^«|Vi 
](n^7  -"'^^'^  o2L2.4l^  071  >:ua: . — ^12:  I,  A  )JJ^  ]^s\  ^71  )Vnw  ^»\S  ^-s]? 
|iu*»oZ? ,  P  ^  T^r*!—  U^  ^1?  I'J'^-'S  ^o?i±^  ,_-J^(Ji  ^  L^]  ,_3U*  w£]  . 
— 12:  13,  A  w*:;>4U  \i  H^T^?  U^?^?  M^  i^l  wSut^uioJ  y  r*^^?  "^7  - 

The  comparison  of  the  text  of  the  Acts  and  the  epistles  which 
Aphraates  used  with  the  text  of  the  Peshitta  shows  that  on  the  whole 
these  texts  are  closely  related  to  each  other.  There  are  numerous 
instances  where  A  =  P. 


54  NEIV  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

But  one  cannot  deny  that  Aphraates  differs  in  a  good  many 
passages  from  the  Peshitta  in  such  a  way  that  the  differences  cannot 
be  explained  on  the  ground  of  inaccurate  quotation,  even  if  we  allow 
all  legitimate  freedom  for  quotations  from  memory.  For,  strangely 
enough,  quite  frequently  the  variation  in  Aphraates  can  be  found  also 
in  Greek  texts.  How  could  he,  for  instance,  have  gotten  from  the 
Peshitta  that  strange  reading  of  i  Cor.  15  :5i  which  he  quotes  three 
times  ?  He  agrees  with  the  best  Greek  MS.,  U^ ,  while  P  has  the  ordinary 
reading.  If  the  canon  holds  good  here  that  the  more  difficult  reading 
is  the  older  and  more  original,  then  A  has  here  an  older  text  than  P. 
Again  in  i  Cor.  15  :  55  A's  reading  is  the  regular  reading  of  the  Greek 
MSS.,  while  P's  is  by  no  means  so  common.  In  i  Cor.  9  :  5  both  texts 
represent  two  different  traditions  of  the  Greek  text.  Besides  these  varia- 
tions there  are  different  translations  of  the  same  Greek  text,  some  occur- 
ring so  often  as  to  leave  no  room  for  the  thought  that  this  is  an  inaccurate 
quotation  of  A  from  P;  e.  g.,  Hebr.  4  :  9  (thrice);  Eph.  2  :  6  (twice);  i 
Cor.  15  :4o  (twice);  2  Cor.  5  :  18  (twice);  and  in  one  case  at  least  the 
translation  of  a  Greek  word  which  Aphraates  gives  is  also  given  by 
Crysostom  and  Theophylact,  viz.,  Gal.  5:12  airoKoi^ovTai  ■=  "utinam 
genitalibus  exscindantur,"  P  =  "  utinam  praescindendo  praescin 
dantur." 

All  this  points  to  a  different  text  of  the  Acts  and  the  epistles  from 
that  of  P.  The  difficulty  is  that  we  have  no  other  text.  But  there  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  Aphraates  knew  Greek,  and  that  he  used  a 
Greek  MS.  alongside  of  his  Peshitta  text.  There  must  have  been  at 
least  one  different  text  from  P  for  Acts  and  epistles ;  the  case  of  the 
gospels  would  thus  be  paralleled.  To  my  mind  there  is  no  doubt  in 
regard  to  this. 

Can  we  express  any  opinion  as  to  the  relation  of  this  text  to  that  of 
P  ?  It  used  a  different  Greek  text  as  its  basis  —  that  is  plain  from  the 
preceding.  Perhaps  such  passages  as  Acts  19:3,  where  A  has,  "Are 
ye  baptized  ?  "  P  =  "  With  what  are  ye  baptized  ?  "  2  Tim.  3  :  16,  A  = 
"  Everything  which  is  in  the  Spirit  of  God,"  P  =  "  Every  writing  which  is 
written  by  the  Spirit  of  God ;"  Rom.  1:3,  4,  A  josi,  P  ,^i^z] ;  i  Cor. 
I  :3o;  I  Cor.  10:  27,  where  A  adds  (with  others)  cis  hdirvov,  so  as  to 
make  the  Greek  term  KoKd  more  intelligible  to  the  Syrians ;  i  Cor. 
15  :  40  ;  15  :  36-38  ;  2  Cor.  9  :  6 — permit  us  to  say  (though  only  tenta- 
tively) that  the  Aphraates  text  had  a  more  primitive  and  natural  style, 
not  so  concerned  to  express  the  fine  shades  of  difference  in  theology  as 
P,  e.  g.,  2  Tim.  3:16;  Rom.  5  :  14. 


PRELIM  IN  A  R  V  INVES  TIG  A  TIONS  5  5 

J.  Ephraim. 

While  Aphraates  used  only  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the  epistles 
of  Paul,  including  among  them  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  Ephraim 
uses  also  the  catholic  epistles  and  the  Revelation,  so  that  he  quotes  from 
every  New  Testament  book  that  is  in  our  Bible.  Now,  the  Peshitta  did 
not  contain  all  of  them  ;  it  omitted  2  and  3  John,  2  Peter,  and  Revela- 
tion. Where  Ephraim  quoted  these  passages  from  is  a  question.  It 
may  be  that  he  quoted  them  from  a  Greek  MS.,  but  it  is  much  more 
probable  that  already  in  his  time  there  were  translations  of  these  books 
current,  though  they  were  not  taken  into  the  canon  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

But,  leaving  these  quotations  alone,  one  naturally  asks :  Are 
Ephraim 's  quotations  from  the  other  books  which  are  in  the  Peshitta 
like  the  text  of  P,  or  different  from  it  ? 

Again  I  refer  here  to  the  collation  made  by  Rev.  F.  H.  Woods  in 
Studia  Biblica  et  Ecclesiastica,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  132  ff. 

What  strikes  one  first  of  all  is  the  fact  that  in  the  main  Ephraim 
quotes  from  the  Peshitta.  There  are,  however,  also  in  Ephraim 
instances  where  he  has  a  different  translation  of  the  same  Greek  text, 
e.  g.,  Eph.  4:3)2  Cor.  7:2;  Eph.  3:19.  But  they  are  not  so  fre- 
quent as  in  Aphraates. 

There  are  also  a  few  references  in  which  Ephraim's  variation  is 
supported  by  Greek  MSS.,  and  he  has  therefore  had  a  text  which 
used  a  different  Greek  text  from  P. 

Acts  5:41,    E  ji^-fc-ais    >o, 0,    P  .oavkiO|_D  ;    E  atLoA, ,    P  \LaA. .     "The 

first  variant  agrees  with  the  Greek  airo  Trpoo-wTrou  tov  a-vveSpiov,  the  second 
is  supported  by  Origen,  the  i^thiopic,  and  a  few  very  late  Greek  cursives." 
(Woods.) 

2  Cor.  5:21,  E  ,_aX*,  P  .a^^X^ic  ;  A  . iJi^^Csc  ,  but  also  =  P,  Greek 
inrep  rfp.Civ. 

Gal.  5  :22,  E  the  singular  /capTro's  =  Greek,  P  Kapiroi. 

The  variants  are  few  and  not  as  significant  as  those  of  Aphraates. 
Nevertheless,  the  influence  of  another  version  than  the  Peshitta  cannot 
be  denied.  But  that  influence  is  not  half  so  strong  as  in  Aphraates. 
The  Peshitta  text,  as  in  the  gospels,  so  also  for  Acts  and  epistles,  is 
gradually  gaining  the  upper  hand,  and  it  cannot  have  taken  long  before 
it  stood,  if  not  alone,  yet  supreme  in  the  field. 


56  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

It  will  be  well  to  compare  at  this  point  the  extent  of  the  different 

canons : 

The  Extent  of  the  Canon  of  the  Doctrina  Addai. 

1.  The  Diatessaron. 

2.  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles 

3.  The  epistles  of  Paul,  probably  without  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
There  is  no  trace  of  i,  2,  3  John,  i  and  2  Peter,  James,  Jude,  and  Revelation. 

The  Extent  of  Aphraates"  Canon. 

1.  The  four  gospels  in  the  Diatessaron  and  the  separate  gospels. 

2.  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

3.  The  epistles  of  Paul,  including  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 

There  is  no  trace  of  i,  2,  3  John,  i  and  2  Peter,  James,  Jude,  and  Revela- 
tion. 

The  Extent  of  the  Canon  of  the  Peshitta. 

1.  The  four  gospels. 

2.  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

3.  The  epistles  of  Paul,  including  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 

4.  The  catholic  epistles,  i  Peter,  i  John,  James. 

The  Peshitta  omits  2  Peter,  2  and  3  John,  Jude,  and  Revelation. 

The  Extent  of  Ephraim's  Canon. 
1-4  is  like  the  Peshitta,  but  he  cites  also  from  2  and  3  John,  2  Peter,  Jude, 
and  Revelation. 

III.    CANONICITV. 

Now  it  will  be  asked :  Did  Aphraates  regard  these  New  Testament 
books  really  as  canonical,  or  does  he  simply  refer  to  them  ?  Had  he 
really  Sl  fixed  New  Testa?nent  canon  ? 

There  can  be  no  doubt  about  this.  In  fact,  we  do  not  expect  any- 
thing else,  if  we  remember  that  he  lived  in  the  fourth  century.  But  that 
might,  perhaps,  not  be  decisive  in  the  Syrian  church,  which  at  Aphraates' 
time  had  scarcely  existed  two  centuries.  Aphraates,  however,  uses  the 
entire  Bible,  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament,  as  the  court  of  final  appeal. 
There  is  no  difference  for  him  in  authority  ;  he  has  no  grades  of  inspira- 
tion or  canonicity.  The  New  Testament  stands  on  the  same  level  as 
the  Old  Testament.  He  uses  the  same  formulas  of  introduction  in 
citations  from  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Testament.  Mostly,  of 
course,  he  uses  for  the  Old  Testament  the  form  :  "  The  prophet  says, " 
"David  says,"  "He  speaks  in  the  prophet,"  "The  living  mouth  speaks 
in  the  prophet,"  "It  is  written,"  "The  Scripture  testifies,"  "He  says  in 


PRELIM  IN  A  RY  IN  VES  TIG  A  TIONS  5  7 

the  Scripture."  He  introduces  eighty-six  quotations  from  the  Old 
Testament,  with,  "It  is  written."  For  the  gospels  his  introductory 
phrases  are  mostly,  "Our  Lord  says,"  but  also  ''The  Scripture  says'' 
(Bert,  p.  145),  "The  Lord  writes  (p.  60),  "The  King  has  written  us 
thus"  (p.  215),  "He  has  written  us  beforehand"  (p.  346),  "Jesus,  who 
is  called  your  teacher,  has  written  you"  (p.  329),  " //  is  written  for  you 
in  the  Word"  (p.  330).  There  are  fifteen  citations  from  the  gospels 
which  he  introduces  with,  " It  is  written.''  Statements  like  these  leave 
no  doubt  that  the  book  is  referred  to  ;  that  not  only  the  words  of  Jesus 
are  canonical,  but  the  gospels  containing  those  words. 

From  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  he  quotes  only  four  times,  intro- 
ducing the  citations  with,  "Our  Redeemer  says,"  also  "The  blessed 
apostles  proclaim,"  "The  Acts  of  the  twelve  apostles  tell  us  about 
this,"  "The  preaching  of  the  twelve  apostles  testifies  to  us;"  which 
shows  that  the  book  itself  is  referred  to. 

The  epistles  of  Paul  are,  almost  all  of  them,  introduced  by,  "The 
apostle  says."  Never  mentioning  Paul's  name  in  an  introductory 
phrase,  he  regards  Paul  as  the  apostle  kolt  €$oxr]v.  Once  only  a  letter 
as  such  is  referred  to  by  name  :  "The  blessed  apostle  writes  in  the 
first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  and  says"  (p.  10).  But  he  has  also 
four  quotations  introduced  with  the  formula,  "It  is  written"  :  i  Tim. 
I  :  9  (p.  21);  I  Cor.  6  :  5,  "Again  in  another  letter  it  is  written  ;"  2  Cor. 
6:  16  (p.  274);  Gal.  6  :  6  (p.  368).  Two  quotations  are  not  counted 
here  which  may  be  just  as  well  from  the  Old  Testament  as  from 
Rom.  4  :  3. 

Aphraates  had,  then,  a  fixed  New  Testament  canon,  which  stood  on 
the  same  level  of  authority  as  the  Old  Testament.  And  in  this  New 
Testament  canon  he  distinguishes  no  degrees  of  authority  ;  all  the 
books  are  on  the  same  plane. 

The  question  which  now  faces  us  is  :  What  is  the  principle  on  which 
Aphraates  bases  his  canonicity  ?  It  is  not  necessary  to  inquire  what  is 
the  principle  of  the  Doctrina  Addai  and  Ephraim,  because  Aphraates 
is  a  true  representative  of  the  whole  Syrian  church,  which  they  are  not. 
He  is  no  acute  theologian,  who  can  draw  hairsplitting  distinctions  ; 
he  is  a  thoroughly  practical  man,  with  a  good  deal  of  common-sense. 
His  principle  of  canonicity  will,  therefore,  be  the  principle  of  the 
whole  church.  Of  course,  we  have  to  remember  that  he  received  his 
canon  from  the  church,  and  would  therefore  accept  it  because  it  was 
generally  accepted  in  the  church.  But  his  principle  was  therefore  not 
the  traditional.     There  is  no  hint  of  such  a  principle  in  his  writings. 


58  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

Why  does  he  regard  the  gospels  as  canonical  ?  Because  they  con- 
tain the  words  of  our  Savior.  This  appears  over  and  over  again. 
Nearly  all  of  his  quotations  are,  as  already  remarked,  introduced  by, 
"The  Lord"  or  "Our  Savior  says."  He  does  not  think  at  all  of  an 
apostolic  basis.  The  writers  of  the  gospels  are  for  him  a  matter  of  indif- 
ference; not  even  once  is  a  single  name  of  the  evangelists  mentioned. 
Parisot  says  he  mentions  John,  but  everyone  who  notices  the  quota- 
tions will  see  that  this  is  not  John  the  evangelist,  but  John  the  Baptist. 

Why  does  he  regard  the  epistles  of  Paul  as  canonical  ?  Because 
they  contain  the  words  of  the  inspired  apostle.  Here  also,  his  cita- 
tions are  almost  always  prefaced  with,  "The  blessed  apostle  says." 

Why  does  he  regard  the  book  of  Acts  as  canonical  ?  Because  it  is 
the  mouthpiece  of  the  twelve  apostles  ;  they  speak  in  that  book. 

The  principle  of  the  canonization  of  the  gospels  is  :  Christ  speaks 
in  them ;  of  the  epistles :  the  inspired  apostle  Paul  speaks  in  them ; 
and  of  the  Acts :  the  twelve  apostles  speak  in  them. 


Now  at  last  are  we  ready  to  turn  to  a  reconstruction  of  the  history 
of  the  New  Testament  canon  in  the  Syrian  church. 

RECONSTRUCTION    OF    THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    NEW    TESTAMENT 
CANON  IN  THE  SYRIAN  CHURCH. 

The  earliest  phases  in  the  history  of  the  New  Testament  canon  in 
Syria  are  still  veiled  in  darkness.  However,  the  discovery  of  the  Sina- 
iticus  makes  it  plain  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  activity  displayed  in 
the  early  Syrian  church  in  regard  to  the  text  of  the  New  Testament,  or, 
better,  of  the  gospels.  It  is  probable  that  the  two  texts,  Ss  and  Sc,  are 
only  specimens  or  representatives  of  other  texts.  The  relative  inde- 
pendence of  these  two  texts  leads  one  to  think  that  there  must  have 
been  made  many  translations  of  the  gospels,  which  were  more  or 
less  independent  of  each  other.  As  more  churches  were  built  in  the 
different  towns  and  villages,  the  desire,  the  necessity,  was  felt  to  have  a 
copy  of  the  gospels,  at  first  not  for  private  use,  but  for  the  common 
worship  in  the  church.  They  could  not  use  the  Greek  originals ; 
they  needed  a  Syriac  translation.  How  many  texts  there  were  we  shall 
probably  never  know.  I  do  not  think  that  there  is  one  type  of  the 
Old  Syriac  text ;  there  must  have  been  many.  The  task,  therefore,  will 
be  to  determine  which  of  them  is  the  oldest  text.  But  we  must  not 
think  that  that  oldest  text  was  in  general  use  in  the  entire  church. 
Other  texts  slightly  younger  were  probably  used  by  others  as  the  church 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  HISTORY  59 

grew.  They  were,  then,  not  copies  from  the  Old  Syriac,  but  different 
translations.  But  all  this  must,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  a  matter  of 
conjecture.  It  is  founded  only  on  the  relative  independence  of  the 
two  texts  represented  by  Ss  and  Sc,  and  also  of  P.  Again,  we  can  say 
with  no  great  amount  of  certainty,  but  with  a  good  deal  of  plausibility, 
that  at  first  not  all  the  four  gospels  had  been  translated,  but  probably 
only  one,  then  two,  then  three,  then  four.  They  were  current  in  this 
single  form.  This  is  indicated  by  the  different  order  in  which  the 
gospels  stand  in  Ss  and  Sc.  It  is  also  very  likely,  as  Professor  J.  Ren- 
del  Harris  has  shown,  that  an  account  of  the  passion  was  in  existence 
in  harmonistic  form.  This  would  be  very  natural,  considering  how 
great  an  emphasis  the  early  Christians  laid  on  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ, 
almost  to  the  exclusion  of  the  life  which  he  lived  in  Palestine. 

But  we  are  on  the  ground  of  mere  conjecture,  however  plausible 
and  natural  it  be,  until  we  come  to  the  Sinaiticus.  That  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  oldest  form  of  the  gospels  of  the  Syrian  church  which  we  have 
in  our  possession.  The  Greek  text  which  underlies  it  belongs  evidently 
to  the  first  half  of  the  second  century ;  of  it  the  remark  of  Credner 
about  Codex  Bezse,  to  which,  as  we  have  seen,  this  text  is  closely 
related,  holds  good  : 

Veranderungen  wie  diese  konnten  in  der  katholischen  Kirche  nur  bis 
um  die  Mitte  des  zweiten  Jahrhunderts  mit  dem  Text  der  Evangelien  vorge- 
nommen  warden,  denn  nach  dieser  Zeit  hat  die  Behauptung  eines  gottlichen 
Ursprungs  der  neutestamentlichen  Schriften  in  derselben  allgemeine  Aner- 
kennung  gefunden.  Dieses  Dogma  lassl  keine  solche  Behandlungsweise  des 
Textes  mehr  zu,  wie  dieselbe  mit  dem  Texte  unserer  Handschrift  vorgenom- 
men  ist.  Dann  wiirde  unserer  Handschrift  ein  Text  aus  dem  zweiten  Jahr- 
hundert  zu  Grunde  Hegen. 

The  same  holds  also  good  of  Sc ;  but  we  shall  speak  of  that  later. 

The  translator  of  Ss  was  faithful  to  his  original  ;  but  his  aim  was  to 
give  a  good,  forcible,  and  popular  translation  ;  he  did  not  want  to 
sacrifice  the  good  Syriac  to  a  very  literal  translation  of  the  Greek. 
There  are,  then,  in  his  translation  certain  minor  points  where  he  trans- 
lates freely,  just  as  we  should  expect  from  him.  For  him  the  substance 
was  the  main  thing,  and  deep  reverence  for  the  letter  is  not  one  of  his 
characteristics,  which  does  by  no  means  reflect  on  the  faithfulness  of 
his  translation,  but  is  nevertheless  a  sign  that  the  books  as  such  were 
not  yet  regarded  as  canonical. 

Now,  a  few  years  later,  about  172-5  A.  D.,  Tatian  made  his 
Diatessaron,  and  it  took  at  once  possession  of  the  field.     It  can  easily 


6o  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

be  understood  that  it  should  be  used  more  than  the  separate  gospels. 
It  was  much  more  convenient  for  the  common  people,  and  also  for  the 
reading  in  the  church  services,  than  the  separate  gospels.  Moreover, 
it  will  be  remembered  that  Christianity  was  at  first  only  the  religion 
of  a  minority;  but  with  Abgar  III.,  176-213  A.  D.,  it  became  the 
national  religion.  This  great  change  coincided,  then,  with  the  origin 
of  the  Diatessaron.  And  it  is  due  to  this  fact,  in  addition  to  its  con- 
venience, that  it  became  the  gospel  book  of  the  Syrian  church,  and  that 
the  separate  gospels  had  to  give  way.  This  was,  however,  possible  only 
on  two  conditions  :  (i)  that  the  four  separate  gospels  were  not  yet  estab- 
lished by  long  use,  which  is  quite  in  harmony  with  the  result  of  our 
investigation;  it  was  made  about  160-70  A.  D.,  perhaps  between  150- 
70  A.  D. ;  (2)  that  there  was  not  yet  a  conception  of  the  canonicity 
of  the  books  as  such.  If  that  idea  had  already  been  present,  such  a 
substitution  would  have  been  impossible. 

There  can,  however,  be  no  doubt  that  even  after  the  introduction 
of  the  Diatessaron  the  four  separate  gospels  were  used  alongside  of 
the  harmony,  especially  by  the  educated  classes,  though  probably  not 
in  the  church  services.  That  the  separate  gospels  had  adherents  is  seen 
to  the  fact  that  after  the  introduction  of  the  harmony  the  Curetonian 
gospels  were  translated.  They  are  later  than  the  Diatessaron,  but  they 
cannot  be  much  younger ;  that  the  underlying  Greek  text  shows.  The 
origin  of  this  text  was  due  to  the  desire  to  have  the  separate  gospels  in 
a  text  which  corresponded  more  closely  with  the  Diatessaron.  It  can 
hardly  be  much  later  than  200  A.  D.  And  then,  about  one  hundred 
years  later,  there  is  another  text  current  in  the  Syrian  church,  as  we  see 
from  Aphraates.  The  separate  gospels  had  enough  adherents  during  all 
this  time. 

But  still  the  main  text  was  the  Diatessaron.  And  now  it  may  be 
laid  down  as  a  fact  that  at  the  end  of  the  second  century  the  Syrian 
church  used  as  a  church  only  the  Diatessaron  of  Tatian,  and  this  was, 
I  have  no  doubt,  already  regarded  as  canonical  about  the  year  200 
A.  D.     And  that  for  the  following  considerations  : 

It  is  natural  to  assume  that  the  development  of  the  idea  of  the 
canon  in  the  Syrian  church  should  follow  on  the  whole  the  line  which 
is  followed  in  the  Grseco-Roman  church.  Now,  there  the  first  thing 
that  was  regarded  as  authoritative  or  canonical  was  the  words  of  Jesus 
Christ,  no  matter  whether  they  were  handed  down  in  oral  or  in  written 
form.  When  the  gospels  had  been  written,  they  were  not  regarded  as 
authoritative,  but  simply  the  words  of  Christ  which  they  contained  ; 
not  the  books,  but  the  words  of  Christ,  were  canonical. 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  HISTORY  6 1 

As  time  passed  on,  and  there  was  no  longer  an  oral  tradition  on 
which  the  church  could  rely,  it  was  quite  natural  that  the  written  gos- 
pels should  increase  in  dignity.  Now  not  only  the  words,  but  also  the 
deeds  of  Jesus  Christ  are  regarded  with  interest,  from  which  it  was 
only  one  step  to  regard  the  whole  contents,  or  the  gospels  themselves, 
as  authoritative.  Of  course,  the  ground  of  the  authority  of  the  books 
lay  ultimately  in  the  fact  that  they  contained  the  words  of  Christ.  But 
there  were  quite  a  number  of  gospels;  hoW  to  distinguish  those  which 
were  more  authoritative  from  the  others  was  the  great  question.  All 
reported  the  words  of  Christ,  however  they  might  differ  in  other 
respects.  It  took  quite  a  long  time  till  our  four  gospels  were  regarded 
as  exclusively  canonical.  And  what  was  the  test  applied  ?  Why  were 
they  regarded  as  canonical  and  others  not  ?  Because  they  were  written 
by  apostles  and  apostolic  men.  Apostolicity  became  the  principle  of 
canonicity. 

It  is  significant  for  the  history  of  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament 
in  the  Syrian  church  that  they  started  at  once  with  our  four  gospels  ; 
they  had  not  to  pass  through  that  long  process  through  which  the 
Graeco-Roman  church  had  to  go,  and  which  ended  by  limiting  the 
number  of  the  gospels  which  should  be  used  in  the  churches  to  our  four 
gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John.  Thus  the  unknown  trans- 
lator of  the  Sinaiticus  translated  these  four  ;  Tatian  compiled  these 
four,  and  no  others  ;  Sc  and  P  are  translations  of  these  only.  No  mat- 
ter how  often  the  gospels  may  have  been  translated  into  Syriac,  no 
matter  how  many  copies  there  may  have  been  of  single  gospels  in  the 
Syrian  church,  there  is  absolutely  no  evidence  that  the  Syrians  have 
ever  had  in  these  early  times  apocryphal  gospels.  They  did  not  need  to 
separate  other  gospels  from  these  four  canonical  gospels.  That  had 
been  done  already  for  them  by  the  Graeco-Roman  church.  They 
inherit  at  once  the  result  of  a  long  struggle. 

This  explains  why  the  Syrian  church  has  the  much  more  primitive 
and  natural  principle  of  canonicity,  and  is  at  variance  with  the  entire 
Grseco-Roman  church  in  this  point.  It  regards  these  writings  as 
authoritative  because  they  contain  the  words  and  deeds  of  Jesus. 
It  does  not  attach  any  importance  whatever  to  the  persons  of  the 
writers  of  the  gospels.  Aphraates,  as  late  as  340  A.  D.,  does  not  even 
once  mention  the  name  of  one  of  them.  The  words  and  life  of  Jesus  are 
their  basis  of  authority ;  no  matter  who  has  written  the  reports  of 
them.  That  they  are  a  reliable  source  their  universal  acceptance  by 
the  Graeco-Roman  church  had  shown. 


62  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  we  do  not  expect  a  long  development.     The 
gospel  canon   must  soon   become   fixed.     At    about   200  A.  D.  they 
would  say,  "As  it  stands  wr-tten  in  the  gospel,"  meaning  by  "gospel"  • 
the  book. 

We  see,  then,  that  at  the  end  of  the  second  or  at  the  beginning  of 
the  third  century  the  Syrian  church  had  a  very  peculiar  canon,  such  as 
no  other  church,  so  far  as  we  know,  had,  viz.,  a  gospel  harmony,  the 
Diatessaron  of  Tatian.  To  the  truth  of  this  statement  the  Doctrina 
Addai  witnesses  when  it  says  that  after  Addai  had  for  some  time  suc- 
cessfully labored  in  Edessa,  "a  large  multitude  of  people  assembled 
day  by  day  and  came  to  the  prayer  of  the  service,  and  to  the  reading 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  of  the  Diatessaron "  (p.  34).  This 
shows  that  the  Diatessaron  was  their  first  gospel  canon. 

The  next  step  in  the  development  is  indicated  by  the  Doctrina 
Addai,  when  it  says  (p.  44) :  "  But  the  law  and  the  prophets  and  the 
gospel,  which  ye  read  every  day  before  the  people,  and  the  epistles  of 
Paul,  which  Simon  Peter  sent  us  from  the  city  of  Rome,  and  the  Acts 
of  the  twelve  apostles,  which  John,  the  son  of  Zebedee,  sent  us  from 
Ephesus,  these  books  read  ye  in  the  churches  of  Christ,  and  with  these 
read  not  any  others,  as  there  is  not  any  other  in  which  the  truth  that 
ye  hold  is  written,  except  these  books  which  retain  you  in  the  faith  to 
which  ye  have  been  called." 

There  is  evidently  a  distinction  made  between  the  law  and  the 
prophets  and  the  gospel  on  the  one  side,  and  the  epistles  of  Paul  and 
the  Acts  on  the  other  side.  The  gospel  and  the  Old  Testament  are  read 
daily.  But  the  epistles  and  Acts  have  come  later,  which  is  indicated 
here  by  the  sentences,  "which  Simon  Peter  sent  us  from  the  city  of 
Rome,"  "which  John,  the  son  of  Zebedee,  sent  us  from  Ephesus." 
They  are  directed  to  read  these  books  also  in  addition  to  the  gospel 
and  the  Old  Testament,  which  they  are  accustomed  to  read  every  day 
in  the  service.  The  Diatessaron  is  plainly  put  on  the  same  plane  with 
the  law  and  the  prophets.  The  epistles  of  Paul  and  the  Acts,  though 
also  authoritative,  are  not  yet  on  the  same  level. 

This  is  the  first  notice  which  we  have  about  the  epistles  of  Paul  and 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  in  the  Syrian  church. 

When  they  were  first  translated  we  do  not  know.  Zahn  suggests, 
on  the  basis  of  a  remark  of  Eusebius,  that  Tatian  had  translated  them 
and   given   them   to  the  church.^^     But  if  nothing  else  could  be  said 

38  Eusebius,  Eccl.  Hist.,  IV,  29:  "But  they  say  that  he  [Tatian]  ventured  to 
paraphrase  certain  words  of  the  apostle  [Paul]  in  order  to  improve  their  style." 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  HISTORY  63 

against  this  suggestion,  one  passage  would  seem  to  be  conclusive,  viz., 
the  rendering  of  Rom.  i  :  3,  which  we  find  in  Aphraates,  "The  apostle 
[by  which  always  Paul  is  meant]  witnesses:  'Jesus  Christ  was  from 
Mary,  from  the  seed  of  the  house  of  David,  through  the  spirit  of  holi- 
ness.'" This  passage,  which  makes  that  doctrine,  which  was  so 
obnoxious  to  Tatian,  so  clear,  and  develops  it  more  strongly  than  the 
Greek,  seems  hardly  to  have  been  written  by  Tatian.  Tatian,  who  did 
not  shrink  from  omitting  the  genealogies  and  every  passage  which 
pointed  to  Jesus'  Davidic  descent,  would  certainly  in  his  fji€Ta<f>pa-o-aL  of 
the  epistles  omit  this  reference,  or,  at  least,  would  not  make  the  doc- 
trine much  clearer  than  it  is  in  the  original  Greek.  I  recognize,  of 
course,  that  Zahn  suggests  that  this  passage  is  taken  from  the  apocry- 
phal letter  of  Paul  to  the  Corinthians,  on  which  Ephraim  commented. 
But  that  cannot  be  proved.  That  Ephraim  commented  upon  this 
third  letter  of  Paul  to  the  Corinthians  is  no  reason  to  think  that  it  was 
in  his  canon.  There  is  no  evidence  that  it  ever  formed  a  part  of  the 
canon  of  the  Syrian  church.  Besides  this,  Zahn  himself  puts  this  sug- 
gestion under  the  head  of  "  Problematisches."  But  the  reference  is 
plainly  to  Rom.  i  :  3. 

However,  even  if  Tatian  did  not  translate  the  letters  of  Paul,  it 
must  certainly  have  been  done  not  very  long  after  the  translation  of 
the  gospels.  It  may  have  been  fifty  years,  perhaps  more.  Just  when 
it  took  place  we  cannot  tell.  The  Doctrina  Addai,  however,  which 
describes,  as  is  comiiionly  believed,  the  condition  of  the  church  as  it 
existed  in  the  period  from  about  200-250  A.  D.,  would  favor  our  pre- 
supposition that  it  was  done  about  230-50  A.  D.  Now,  the  question 
is :  Can  we  rely  absolutely  on  the  statements  of  that  document  ?  As 
regards  the  statement  that  the  Old  Testament  and  the  gospel  and  the 
Acts  and  the  epistles  of  Paul  were  read  in  the  churches,  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  this  is  correct.  But  can  we  rely  on  the  statement  that 
the  epistles  of  Paul  were  sent  by  Peter  from  Rome?  Of  course,  Peter 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  He  is  introduced  in  accordance  with  the 
design  of  the  writer  to  push  the  beginning  of  Christianity  in  Edessa 
back  to  the  time  of  Jesus  and  his  apostles.  But  can  we  infer  from 
that  statement  that  the  epistles  of  Paul  were  imported  from  Rome  ? 
I  do  not  think  that  the  question  can  be  absolutely  answered  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge  about  the  Syrian  church.  All  that 
can  be  said  is  that  it  is  highly  probable,  if  we  take  into  account 
the  fact  that  the  Syriac  text  is  very  closely  related  to  the  so-called 
"Western"  text,  agreeing  with   it  in  many  points  where  all  the  other 


64  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

texts  differ.  Moreover,  the  frequent  intercourse  between  the  two  cities 
explains  much. 

Now,  if  that  be  so,  that  the  epistles  of  Paul  were  brought  into  the 
Syrian  church  from  Rome,  then  we  must  conclude  that  the  epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  which  all  Syrians  regard  as  Pauline,  was  not  in  that  col- 
lection. For  at  that  time  it  was  not  regarded  as  Pauline  in  Rome. 
This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  the  text  of  the  Peshitta  shows,  as  is 
generally  accepted,  marks  which  indicate  that  it  was  made  by  a  different 
translator.  Then  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  must  have  come  in  later. 
When  that  took  place  we  again  do  not  know.  But  about  eighty  or  a 
hundred  years  later  we  find  Aphraates  using  it  as  Pauline.  He  quotes  it 
in  the  same  way  as  the  other  letters  of  Paul,  and  there  is  no  trace  that 
he  knew  that  it  was  doubted  elsewhere.  The  certainty  with  which  he 
uses  it  as  Pauline  indicates  that  it  must  have  been  added  to  the  Pauline 
collection  not  so  very  much  later.  Perhaps  it  came  very  soon  after- 
ward, perhaps  twenty  or  more  years  later  than  the  other  letters.  All 
this  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  the  epistles  of  Paul  were  brought 
from  Rome  to  Edessa. 

As  soon  as  it  can,  however,  be  shown  that  the  Syrian  church 
received  its  Pauline  collection,  not  from  Rome,  but  from  Alexandria, 
the  argument  falls  to  the  ground,  and  we  need  not  assume  that  the 
epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was  ever  wanting  in  the  Syrian  collection  of 
Pauline  letters.  But  that  is  not  proved  yet,  though  it  must  be  said 
that  Aphraates'  use  of  it  would  favor  this  theory ;  the  tradition  in  the 
Doctrina  Addai,  the  close  relation  between  the  Syrian  and  the  Western 
text,  and  the  difference  of  the  translators  point  the  other  way. 

Did,  then,  the  Syrian  church  in  that  time,  200-250  A.  D.,  receive 
all  the  letters  of  Paul  except  Hebrews,  and  was  none  missing  ? 

The  homilies  of  Aphraates  would  seem  to  indicate  that  not  all  the 
epistles  were  in  his  canon.  He  omits  to  cite  Philemon  and  2  Thessa- 
lonians.  Now,  Philemon  is  so  small  and  of  such  a  character  that  we 
are  not  surprised  that  he  does  not  quote  it.  But  why  does  he  not 
quote  2  Thessalonians  ?  We  have  to  remember  that  he  does  not  quote 
so  very  many  passages  from  the  epistles  altogether,  and  his  method 
of  quotation  does  not  warrant  us  in  making  the  assertion  that  it  was 
not  in  his  canon,  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  it  was  universally 
accepted  in  the  Grseco-Roman  church.  We  must,  therefore,  conclude 
that  his  failure  to  quote  2  Thessalonians  was  due  to  accident,  and 
that  the  Syrian  church  received,  indeed,  all  the  Pauline  letters  at  that 
time. 


J 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  HISTORY  65 

When  these  epistles  of  Paul  had  been  introduced  they  would 
undergo  recensions,  or  there  originated  different  translations  of  the 
epistles.  Both  these  are  seen  in  Aphraates  and  Ephraim.  Certain 
passages  show  that  the  text,  especially  of  Aphraates,  was  a  more  popu- 
lar and  free  translation,  so  that  this  would  be  an  earlier  stage  of  the 
Peshitta  text.  Other  passages  show  that  there  was  a  different  transla- 
tion from  that  of  the  Peshitta,  because  they  are  translations  of  different 
Greek  readings.  But  since  the  bulk  of  the  texts  is  the  same,  and  the 
passages  of  this  latter  kind  become  much  rarer  in  Ephraim,  there  is 
good  reason  to  believe  that  both  the  Aphraates  text  and  the  Ephraim 
text  mark  simply  two  stages  in  the  development  of  the  Peshitta 
text. 

The  Doctrina  Addai  speaks  also  about  the  Acts  of  the  twelve 
apostles,  which  they  are  directed  to  read  in  the  churches.  Whence  it 
came  is  not  known;  for  nobody  regards  Addai's  statement,  that  John 
sent  it  from  Ephesus,  as  historic.  When  it  came  can  only  be  guessed  at. 
It  seems  to  have  come  about  the  same  time  as  Paul's  epistles.  How  it 
came  nobody  can  tell.  But  I  point  to  the  fact  that  it  came  quite  as 
suddenh'^  and  quite  as  mysteriously  into  the  canon  of  the  Graeco- 
Roman  church. 

To  sum  up,  then,  the  development  of  the  canon  until  250  A.  D.  : 
There  were  originally  the  four  separate  gospels  in  use  about  160-75 
A.  D.  These  were  supplanted  by  the  more  convenient  translation  of 
the  Diatessaron  when  Christianity  became  the  national  religion.  About 
200  A.  D.  the  gospel  canon  is  fixed  ;  it  is  the  Diatessaron. 

In  the  time  200-250  A.  D.  the  epistles  of  Paul,  except  Hebrews, 
and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  came  in.  Soon  afterward  the  epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  was  introduced  and  added  to  the  Pauline  collection.  At 
338  A.  D.  we  have  the  canon  of  the  church  comprising  the  Diatessa- 
ron of  Tatian,  the  epistles  of  Paul,  including  Hebrews,  and  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles.  Now,  the  whole  method  of  Aphraates'  quotation  points 
to  the  fact  that  this  canon  was  already  for  some  time  in  existence. 
We  should  say,  therefore,  with  a  good  deal  of  plausibility,  that  the 
Syrian  church  had  a  fixed  New  Testament  canon  already  about  300 
A.  D.,  if  not  earlier.  Of  the  catholic  epistles  and  the  Revelation  there 
is  no  trace. 

Meanwhile  there  was  another  movement  active  in  the  church,  dating 
back  as  far  as  the  beginning  of  Christianity  in  Edessa,  insignificant  and 
small  at  first,  but  its  victory  was  inevitable.  It  was  stated  above  that 
when  the  Diatessaron  took  the  place  of  the  separate  gospels  there  were 


66  NEW  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

still  a  good  number  of  adherents  of  the  old  version.  They  translated 
the  Greek  gospels  again  and  again.  On  the  church  at  large  this  had 
no  influence  at  first ;  it  used  the  Diatessaron.  But  the  fact  must  be 
recognized  that  these  men  had  on  their  side  the  unanimous  consent  of 
the  Grseco-Roman  church  ;  for  nowhere  else  was  a  harmony  used. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  they  knew  this,  and  that  they  endeavored 
to  substitute  the  four  separate  gospels  for  the  Diatessaron.  But  it 
had  naturally  to  lead  to  such  a  step. 

The  movement  was  well  under  way  at  the  time  of  Aphraates.  He 
quotes  from  the  Diatessaron,  but  also  very  often,  perhaps  mostly,  from 
the  separate  gospels.  We  can  no  more  say,  in  his  case,  that  the  Dia- 
tessaron was  his  only  gospel  canon,  because  of  his  frequent  quotations 
from  the  other  gospels.  The  separate  gospels  were  equally  canonical 
for  him,  and,  since  he  is  a  true  representative  of  the  church  at  large, 
also  for  the  church.  It  could  be  only  a  question  of  time  which  form 
should  ultimately  prevail ;  for  that  they  would  retain  two  different 
forms  in  their  canon  would  be  impossible  as  time  went  on. 

Ephraim  still  uses  the  Diatessaron,  writing  a  commentary  on  it,  but 
his  quotations  are  mostly  from  the  Peshitta.  He  seems  to  have  used 
the  Diatessaron  more  for  his  private  use  and  for  the  arrangement  of 
his  lectures  on  the  exposition  of  the  gospels,  though  very  probably  it 
was  also  still  used  in  the  churches  alongside  of  the  four  separate 
gospels.  It  was  very  natural  that  some  would  substitute  the  separate 
gospels  in  the  form  of  the  Peshitta  about  Ephraim's  time ;  others 
would  still  use  the  Diatessaron.  As  always,  so  also  here,  there  were  two 
parties,  the  conservatives  and  the  progressive  liberals.  Public  opinion, 
however,  strengthened  by  the  unanimous  action  of  the  Grgeco- Roman 
church,  must  have  been  in  favor  of  the  Peshitta.  This  is  expressed  in 
the  order  of  Rabbula,  bishop  of  Edessa,  412-35  A.  D.,  who  says  : 

Let  all  the  presbyters  and  deacons  have  a  care  that  in  all  the  churches 
there  be  provided  and  read  a  copy  of  the  distinct  gospels. 

And  soon  the  final  step  is  seen  in  the  destruction  of  the  remaining 
copies  of  the  Diatessaron  by  Theodoret,  bishop  of  Cyrrus,  423-57 
A.  D.,  who  tells  about  it  as  follows  : 

Tatian  also  CQmposed  the  gospel  which  is  called  Diatessaron,  cutting  out 
the  genealogies  and  whatever  other  passages  show  that  the  Lord  was  born  of 
the  seed  of  David  according  to  the  flesh.      And  not  only  did  the  members  of 
his  sect  make  use  of  this  work,  but  even  those  that  follow  the  apostolic  doc 
trine,  not  perceiving  the   mischief  of  the  composition,  but  using  the  book  too 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  HISTORY  67 

simply  as  an  abndgment.  And  I  myself  found  more  than  two  hundred  such 
books  held  in  respect  in  the  churches  of  our  parts  ;  and  I  collected  and  put 
them  all  away  and  put  the  gospels  of  the  four  evangelists  in  their  place. 

With  this  we  have  reached  the  end  of  the  development  of  the  gospel 
canon  in  the  Syrian  church.  The  Peshitta  held  from  now  on  the  field; 
it  has  never  been  supplanted. 

While  this  struggle  of  the  gospels  was  going  on,  there  was  simul- 
taneously with  it  the  development  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the 
epistles.  When  the  epistles  of  Paul  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  had 
come  into  the  Syrian  church,  they  would  soon  be  bound  together  with 
the  gospels.  Now,  since  there  were  two  parties,  the  one  would  have  in 
its  volume  the  Diatessaron  and  the  Acts  and  epistles  of  Paul,  the  other, 
the  separate  gospels  and  the  Acts  and  epistles  of  Paul. 

It  is  very  probable  that  their  texts  were  different,  the  one  set  based 
on  this  MS.  authority,  the  other  on  that.  That  would  account  for  the 
differences  in  the  quotations  of  Aphraates  and  Ephraim.  Now,  we 
have  seen  that  Aphraates'  canon  did  not  contain  more  than  the  gospels, 
the  Acts  of  the  Apost  les,  and  Paul's  epistles,  and  we  concluded  that  this 
was  the  church's  canon,  so  that  then  the  Peshitta  was  not  yet  complete. 
It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  the  fact  that  Aphraates  did  not 
quote  from  any  of  the  other  books  contained  in  the  Peshitta  might 
be  explained  by  saying  that  he  relied  for  his  citations  on  the  official 
canon  of  the  church,  and  did  not  want  to  cite  as  authoritative  letters 
which  were  not  familiar  to  all  and  not  contained  in  the  people's  Bible  ; 
so  that  this  fact  does  not  argue  for  the  non-existence  of  these  epistles  in 
Syriac  form  at  his  time.  It  is  very  well  possible  that  they  existed 
already  in  Syriac  translations,  but  were  not  yet  canonized.  But  did  we 
not  say  that  Aphraates'  principle  of  canonicity  for  the  epistles  was 
apostolicity  :  the  inspired  apostle  speaks  in  them,  therefore  are  they 
authoritative  ?  Why  did  he,  then,  not  accept  these  epistles  of  James, 
Peter  (the  first  epistle),  and  John  (the  first  epistle)?  Now,  while  this  is 
perfectly  true,  we  must  not  deny  the  influence  of  the  general  opinion  on 
any  man.  He  would  certainly  have  no  objection  on  the  ground  of  his 
principle  to  accept  these  books  into  his  Bible.  But  it  would,  perhaps, 
take  some  time  for  him,  as  well  as  for  the  whole  church,  to  do  so.  They 
were  so  accustomed  to  regard  Paul  as  the  apostle  par  excellence,  so 
used  to  regard  his  word,  besides  Christ's,  as  alone  authoritative,  that 
such  a  change  in  this  opinion  could  not  be  effected  in  a  short 
time.  We  have  seen  that  the  principle  of  canonicity  of  the  Syrian 
church  voices  itself  in  Aphraates.     Paul's  epistles  were  accepted  because 


68  NEIV  TESTAMENT  CANON  IN  SYRIAN  CHURCH 

they  were  apostolic.  Now,  should  it  sooner  or  later  be  said  that  also 
other  books  were  written  by  other  apostles,  who  were  just  as  eminent 
as  Paul,  the  church  would  be  inclined  to  accept  them.  There  would 
be  no  reason,  based  on  her  principle,  why  she  should  not,  and  the  fact 
is  that  she  did,  though  not  at  once.  The  express  prohibition  in  the 
Doctrina  Addai,  which  was  written  about  Aphraates'  time,  throws 
some  light  on  this  problem.  "  With  these  [the  Old  Testament,  the 
gospels,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  epistles  of  Paul]  read  not 
any  others,  as  there  is  not  any  other  in  which  the  truth  that  ye  hold  is 
written,  except  these  books,  which  retain  you  in  the  faith  to  which  ye 
have  been  called."  This  remark  points  evidently  to  a  time  when  the 
attempt  was  made  to  introduce  other  books  into  the  canon  of  the 
church.  What  these  books  were  we  do  not  know.  But  it  seems  a  safe 
conclusion  that  they  were  these  three  catholic  epistles,  i  Peter,  i  John, 
and  James.  These  had  been  translated  and  should  be  put  into  the 
canon.  But  as  is  always  the  case,  there  were  men  who  were  opposed 
to  this,  and  to  one  of  these  opponents  we  owe  that  prohibition  in  the 
Doctrina  Addai. 

The  time  referred  to  may  be  adequately  fixed.  The  Diatessaron 
was  at  that  time  the  authoritative  version  for  church  use.  This  was 
before  the  time  of  Aphraates ;  the  epistles  of  Paul  and  the  Acts  were 
regarded  as  authoritative,  which  was  also  the  case  in  Aphraates'  time 
and  earlier.  Later  than  Aphraates  it  can  hardly  have  been,  because 
Ephraim  already  calls  the  Peshitta  "  our  version,"  and  quotes  from 
these  epistles.  It  cannot  be  much  earlier  than  Aphraates,  for  in  his 
writings  there  is  no  trace  of  the  catholic  epistles,  and  no  word  is  said 
about  any  attempt  to  introduce  them  into  the  canon.  It  may  be  that 
in  his  time,  or,  at  the  latest,  very  few  years  later  (345-50  A.  D.),  the 
epistles  were  introduced  into  the  canon. 

So  much  is  certain  :  Ephraim  knew  them  and  quoted  from  them. 
But  besides,  Ephraim  quotes  also  from  2  and  3  John,  2  Peter,  Jude,  and 
Revelation  ;  he  knew,  therefore,  all  the  books  of  our  New  Testament. 
In  this  he  went  farther  than  the  Syrian  church  as  a  whole  did.  The 
Peshitta,  which  marks  the  final  step  of  the  church's  canon,  receives  only 
James,  i  Peter,  i  John ;  the  epistles  of  those  three  apostles  could  be 
classed  with  those  of  the  great  Paul ;  it  admitted  no  others.  It  is 
important  to  recognize  that  Ephraim  is  here  out  of  line  with  the  church 
at  large.  This  finds  its  explanation  in  the  fact  that  he  traveled  much 
and  came  in  contact  with  the  canon  of  the  Constantinople  church. 
Besides,  it  is  an  open  question  whether  he  quoted  these  books  from  the 


RECONSTRUCTION  OF  THE  HISTORY  69 

(ireek  or  from  already  existing  Syriac  translations.  At  any  rate,  the 
church  did  not  follow  him. 

Perhaps  a  word  should  be  said  about  his  commentary  on  the 
apocryphal  correspondence  of  Paul  and  the  Corinthians.  In  the  first 
place  it  should  be  noticed  that  it  is  not  yet  proved  that  this  commen- 
tary has  been  written  by  Ephraim.  It  may  bean  altogether  later  work. 
In  the  second  place,  even  if  Ephraim  wrote  this  commentary,  that 
does  not  prove  that  this  apocryphal  letter  of  Paul  was  in  the  canon  of 
the  Syrian  church.  There  is  no  trace  of  it.  And,  then,  Ephraim  went, 
as  we  saw,  farther  than  the  church  at  large  did.  1  am  quite  certain 
that  it  was  not  in  the  canon  of  the  church. 

But  the  Peshitta  with  James,  1  John,  and  i  Peter  was  rapidly  grow- 
ing in  the  favor  of  the  people.  Ephraim  differs  very  seldom  from  it ;  it  is 
called  by  him  "  our  version."  After  him  it  must  have  been  used  almost 
exclusively,  and  when  the  Diatessaron  was  removed,  the  Peshitta  was 
supreme.  From  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  it  reigns  alone. 
Subsequent  attempts  to  supplant  it  have  failed.  It  is  ///^version  of  the 
Syrian  church.  With  this  the  history  of  the  New  Testament  canon  is 
completed  in  the  Syrian  church.  Its  development  has  taken  a  long 
time  and  is  absolutely  unique  in  the  history  of  the  New  Testament. 


O^  THE 

UNIVERSfTY 

OF 


VITA. 

I  was  born  August  28,  1877,  in  Ratingen,  near  Diisseldorf  on  the 
Rhine,  Germany.  From  1883-87  I  went  to  the  public  school  ;  from 
1887-88,  to  the  high  school  at  Burscheid.  In  1888  I  entered  the  Quarta 
of  the  Royal  Gymnasium  at  Diisseldorf,  and  remained  there  until  1891, 
in  which  year  I  left  for  Marburg  on  the  Lahn,  and  stayed  in  the  Mar- 
burger  Gymnasium  until  the  autumn  of  1893.  Then  I  returned  to 
Diisseldorf,  and  was  graduated  in  the  spring  of  1895.  About  a  week 
after  my  graduation  I  sailed  for  America,  and  in  the  fall  of  the  same 
year  entered  Union  Theological  Seminary  in  New  York,  and  at  the 
same  time  Columbia  University,  to  study  theology  and  Semitic 
languages.  In  1898  I  was  graduated  from  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary and  received  the  degree  of  B.D.  sum?na  mm  laude.  Froni  1898-99 
I  was  tutor  in  Union  Theological  Seminary.  During  my  theological 
course  I  studied  also  Semitic  languages  with  Professor  Gottheil,  of 
Columbia  University,  and  with  Professors  Francis  Brown  and  Briggs 
in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary.  In  the  spring  of  1899  the 
Faculty  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  appointed  me  a  Fellow 
of  the  Seminary. 


UNIVEESITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBEABY, 
BERKELEY 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

Books  not  returned  on  time  are  subject  to  a  fine  of 


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1953  LU 


JUL  24 1982 

^^    JUN  2  8  1982 


lOm-4,'23 


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